I only knew one of my Grandfathers. My Dad’s Dad died when I was two years old, and all of my Great Grandfathers were gone before I was born. So, my Grandpa Stewart was the only Grandfather I ever remember.
He was a study in contrast. I learned a lot of my “bad” words from being around him, but he went to church each Sunday. He was a talented musician and singer, but I do not ever remember him saying I love you to anyone with that deep voice of his. Maybe I was just not around when or if he said it to anyone. If he did, it would have been after he went in the nursing home with dementia, and probably by accident.
He was tight as a drum with his money. Part of his Scottish ancestry not doubt, and partly because “hard” money was so hard to come across when he was a young man. I remember him taking his wallet out of the center pocket of his bib overalls at least a couple of times a day, and counting his money. Even if he hadn’t move an inch of his front porch, he would still count his money. Maybe he thought it was going to increase while it was sitting there in his pocket, or perhaps he just had forgotten how much was there a few hours earlier. I’m not sure.
He only “went to town” once a week to buy groceries, and he only paid for the “staples” such as sugar, flour, meal and salt. He made Grandma pay for everything else out of her money. I think she only drew 67 dollars a month from Social Security, and that was it.
He was 57 years old when I was born in 1950, so he always seemed like “the old man” to me. When I was 10 years old, and my Mother was going through her very difficult mental health problems, he was 67. We lived with them for several months during that time period.
From the stories my Mom told me about him before she passed away, he was not a gentle man when she was a young child. Certainly, not an ideal Father by any means. Still, I idolized him, as small children are wont to do with their grandparents in most cases. He was never so cruel to me as he was to my Mom…at least how she described him to be.
I went to school part of the year there in 1960, in Blue Ridge where they lived, and Grandpa gave me a dime every day with which to buy ice cream. Out of character for him I think, but he did it nonetheless. Maybe it was partially out of regret for the way he had treated my Mother. Maybe if was out of pity for the sickness which his daughter was having to go through. I’m not certain.
I have tried my best to be a different grandfather with all of my grandchildren. I haven’t always been successful. I inherited some of MY grandfather’s quick and severe temper and impatience unfortunately, but I have kept as tight a lid on it as possible.
Now, as I approach 67, I find that I will be a Grandfather to another child this fall. A granddaughter. She will be number nine. I’m really a lucky man, because I have been able to interact with my eight grandchildren more than many grandparents are able to.
I’ve tried to be gentle with them. The last time I gave one of them a little spanking, I liked to not have gotten over it. I don’t do that anymore. Never will ever again.
I’ve tried to be loving.
I hope that their memories of “the old man” will be more in line with a nature of empathy. I hope they remember building block towers and watching birds. I hope they remember singing songs, and taking walks.
I think they will all remember me telling them “I love you” I can guarantee you they have all heard it from me, and always will as long as I have my “senses” about me. I’m not saying this to by any means “toot my own horn” I’m certainly as imperfect in my own way as my Grandfather was in his.
June 20 2012
Yesterday’s Trade Day at Summerville had to set a record for the most people I have EVER seen set up and selling. TONS of people! The problem was that there were NOT nearly as many people buying! Dealers were buying from each other…but the number of people coming in to just buy things was VERY low. Dealers had piles and piles of “STUFF” on their tables…a lot of it very similar in nature. It’s the American curse. We have bought and bought things which we “thought” we just had to have and now, when people are out of jobs, low on money, can’t get loans, etc., they are having to sell this unnecessary “stuff” to try and get some money. Problem is, that of all the things which people brought to sell, 90% of it probably went back home with them. There are “thrift” stores popping up all over the place to sell the “stuff” that people finally get tired of hauling around themselves and trying to sell. There are “estate” and yard sales by the dozens every weekend during the “good weather” months. All this leads me to conclude that there is something very basic and fundamental wrong in this country. We have succumbed to the dogma of “consumerism” with the TV blaring out at us to continually “buy this and buy that” newest product until we really believe we cannot do without what they are telling us we need. We have reached a very dangerous crossroad in America where something basic must change if we are to survive as a country. Americans must attend to their NEEDS and NOT their WANTS. It will cause a shift in the way things are done, not only in the manufacturing sector of the country, but possibly even in the way this country if actually governed. Will we do it? Probably not. We will probably all just continue to drag our “stuff” we don’t want to the flea markets, or have a yard sale, or default on our storage building rentals and let the “storage wars” guys buy it out. That might be the easiest and best idea…at least then it would be THEIR problem!
June 7 2012
We need to tell our children…our grandchildren to let their imagination run wild. They need to imagine things that we could only dream about and then make them reality! They are the future. I am so unhappy when I hear parents and others tell children they must be “realists” or pragmatists. “Get your head out of the clouds” I have heard some parents say. I say, tell your kids to get their heads IN the clouds. Never try to suppress or hinder the imagination of a child. It is from their minds that a cure for cancer will spring. It is from their minds that colonies on the moon or mars may come. It is from their minds that the greatest novels, the greatest art, the most wonderful architecture and the world’s most beautiful view of life will come. Let’s give them water from the fountain of encouragement, not the river of despair.
June 4 2012
When we do not learn our lessons of love and kindness for others, life will keep banging us in the face with chances and opportunities TO learn. My face is very bruised but I think I am learning. To the little girls I gave handmade necklaces that my wife had made this weekend because they loved them but had no money. To the man who I bought “Church” hamburgers and cokes because he couldn’t afford them, to the lady that I bought worthless trinkets from, because she had not sold very much and she needed the money. To the folks who nearly ran me off the road, and I didn’t give them the “ugly” sign, but said a prayer for them, to the guy who nearly rammed his SUV up my rear end and I just smiled and said “thanks God” I didn’t go to Church yesterday, but I thanked God for 15 minutes in praise for his gorgeous sunrise and the fact that he was letting me live another day to see it, and for all the blessings he has given me. I don’t consider myself a great man…or even a good man, and my face is still bruised and battered from being hit with the opportunities to show love that I did not take, but….even though I am a slow learner I believe I AM learning and I give thanks for waking up today and trying to learn some more today. It’s not always the great BIG and glorious things you do that mean the most, sometimes it’s the tiny things. And if I have not taken opportunities to show that to any of my friends or family, PLEASE forgive me. I am trying…I am trying harder than ever…
Life is hard. Nobody ever said that it is easy. But, even hard can be good. Even hard can be a learning experience which makes our future living more meaningful. Hard builds the character which enables us to give to others. If life were too easy we would all end up sitting around wondering what to do with our lives. Don’t underestimate hard.
There is NO such thing as a Cosmic co-incidence…. Ask the flowers..they all know and even the bees agrees…it all makes sense when you think on it a bit
I remember the sleepy Summer days like today back in the 60’s when several of us guys would load up our Golf Clubs on our backs and WALK to the Golf Course, play 9 or 18 holes and THEN walk back,..we used to cut through the woods up on 11th St. and come out behind the #6 hole. Man, wish I could do that now!! (well I might could..but I mean I wish I could do it without dying) We didn’t think anything much about doing things like that back in ’63, through ’67 THEN one of us finally got a car, and we got lazy!
May 28, 2012
I was at the Trion track field Saturday for the Memorial Day celebration. I saw a lot fewer of the men from my Dad’s generation there than ever before. The men and women from “the greatest generation” are very quickly and for the most part quietly leaving us. Ten years ago, I still used to see them down at Trade Day, walking around and still buying tools and things to work with. That was their signature, their iconic symbol. Work. They came back home from World War II and Korea and worked. They worked in the Cotton Mills, in the Car factories. They worked as farmers and carpenters. They built this country back up from a depression much greater and more cutting than this current one. They were men of few words, and ever fewer gripes. They didn’t gripe and moan about how hard they had things, about not having the luxuries of life. They ate beans and ‘taters, and did without. They did without a lot of times so that they could give us, the “baby boomers” more than what they had…giving us things that they themselves had always wanted as children but could not have; toys, clothes….a childhood. They mostly gave us love. Many of them gave us more love because of all the death and destruction they had seen in the Wars. So, I was happy to shake the hands of some of these men yesterday. More than that….I was honored. I have been honored to know so many of them who are now gone and have been so instrumental in shaping my life, that being what it is, not perfection but at least respectful in most instances. I wish I could name them all….but will just post this Navy photo of the one I knew the best and miss the most. Thanks Dad for giving me so much…
May 27 2012
I was at the Trion track field yesterday for the Memorial Day celebration. I saw a lot fewer of the men from my Dad’s generation there than ever before. The men and women from “the greatest generation” are very quickly and for the most part quietly leaving us. Ten years ago, I still used to see them down at Trade Day, walking around and still buying tools and things to work with. That was their signature, their iconic symbol. Work. They came back home from World War II and Korea and worked. They worked in the Cotton Mills, in the Car factories. They worked as farmers and carpenters. They built this country back up from a depression much greater and more cutting than this current one. They were men of few words, and ever fewer gripes. They didn’t piss and moan about how hard they had things, about not having the luxuries of life. They ate beans and ‘taters, and did without. They did without a lot of times so that they could give us, the “baby boomers” more than what they had…giving us things that they themselves had always wanted as children but could not have; toys, clothes….a childhood. They mostly gave us love. Many of them gave us more love because of all the death and destruction they had seen in the Wars. So, I was happy to shake the hands of some of these men yesterday. More than that….I was honored. I have been honored to know so many of them who are now gone and have been so instrumental in shaping my life, that being what it is, not perfection but at least respectful in most instances. I wish I could name them all….I hesitate to even name a few for fear I would leave some out from my bad memory who really need to be included. My Daddy of course, Gaines Bowers. Men at the First Baptist Church when I was a child, Mr. Watson and Tip McCollum and Leo Lanier, J.W. Greenwood, Mr. Bailey Gilbreath, Billy Locklear, Paul Arden, Mr. Styles, Jake Woods, (still miss his birthday phone calls) Hugh Henderson, Joe Woods, Logan Parker, Mr. King, (still see him at Trade Day..bless him) Norman McClellan, Victor Pettett, King Anthony, and so many more. The men at Riegel Textile many of who were also members of the Church but some not, Henry Rider, and Dee Wilson, Thurman Day, Julius Sprayberry, Namon Dennis, Joe Collette, Mr. Brown (Roy and Marty’s Daddy) Porter Durham, Mr. Shamblin, and again, so many more. The people of the town…Mr. Sprayberry at the Post Office, and Jules Stephen, who always cut my hair, Joe the Postman always walking his beat, Mr. Chief Starkey, Hoyt Williams, Alfred Mount, Mr. Hurley’s, (Sr. and Jr.) Mr. Horton the pharmacist, Deck Brewster, Sloppy Floyd who was our neighbor at one time, Tommy Brown, Mr. Clyde Bethune, Mr. Grubbs, and so many more. All of our teachers, Mr. Sam McCain, Mr. Miller, Mr. Strickland. So many of them, and of course ALL of their wives who had as much, if not MORE influence on us. Just look at the name of the men, and think…you will know their names. Yes, they are leaving us, and for those who are already gone let’s take a moment to remember them this weekend. For those who are still here and getting around, shake their hands, hug them, tell them you love them while you have a chance….because they ARE passing away and will all soon be gone.
May 24 2012
I know that we are often exhorted to “live in the moment” and I try. But walking around this little old town in the evenings tends to make my moments ones of nostalgia. I walk now, at 61 years old along the same sidewalks and by the same houses which I walked by at the age of 8, winding my way merrily to the old Trion Theater to see the “feature of the week” Could be robots from outer space, or cowboys with their six shooters and wide brim hats, but it was always fun. Ten cents bought a drink and popcorn. Where today could an 8 year old walk almost a mile from his house to the theater by himself and be considered safe….and yet we thought nothing of it. I walked by my first grade teachers house, and I think she is still there…or was the last I knew, and I remember hunting Easter eggs in her backyard and for the one and only time in my life, finding the “Golden Egg” inside a little drainage pipe. I look at the crumbling apartments which once were the premier spots to live, and can only be at awe about the view they must once have had from their top window looking out over the schools, the old Inn, the river and the mill. How idyllic. I ponder all of the souls who passed through these abodes, so many of whom are gone now from this plane and think about what their everyday lives must have been like in the early part of the 1900’s on through the 60’s and 70’s. I look up at one window in particular where a good friend of mine who went to school with me spent her last days, and solemnly say hello….Yes, tomorrow I will go back to living in the moment, but tonight I will bathe in the good memories and feel satisfied about the way they make me feel.
May 5 2012
Overcoming our own innate human quality of selfishness is one of the hardest things a person can do. To give of yourself…your love, your touch, your kind words, is the easiest but most difficult act we will ever learn.
May 15 2012
I pondered over the death of that ol’ Cajun guy from the “Swamp People” series. The man had lived his entire life out in the swamps of Louisiana living off the land. From watching him on the series, him and his brother seemed to be very happy in their lives, which consisted of going out every day and hunting something to eat, or things to repair their house with, or helping other people. It was the helping that sticks with me the most. These guys were obviously uneducated, definitely unrefined men…but like the other men in that part of the country they went out of their way to help their neighbors and counted it as fun most of the time. It appears to me that the entire Cajun community pitches in and helps when their neighbors and their friends need help. Not just in times of catastrophe, but in normal times whenever a need exists. When one man who will help others dies, then many are affected. How many of us would go out of way to help somebody else? How many can even remember the last time they actually helped anyone? My backwoods Grandparents shared food and friendship with a lot of people as I remember from many years ago, but what was once so commonplace is now SO rare. I plead guilty to not doing as much as I could for others and as I pondered on the death of Mitchell Guist I found myself wanting to more like him. Education, wealth, status, none of it means anything if we don’t share what we have with others…
May 12 2012
“Perception is reality” That’s a quote I used to hear quite often from the last manager I worked for. It’s not how you really are which counts, but how you are able to present yourself to the outside world, and to the people around you which counts the most. How then, are people really? How many of us hide secret hates and prejudices in our hearts, but are able to make people “perceive” that we don’t. How many of us really “put on” the airs of Christianity one day a week and are “perceived” as good Christians, but step around beggars on the sidewalks thinking “you outta’ get a job” How many of us wish ill to people behind their backs, but pat them on the back and ask them how their family is doing to their face. Our country is in deep trouble because of the false “perception” of our own greatness…when much, perhaps most, of the world sees us in a much different light. Different cultures “perceive” they way they wish to live differently than we do and when we try to forcefully install our values on them, they hate us for it. So, how do we change our reality as individuals and as a country? How do we change “perception” being reality?
May 5 2012
I’ve lived in this little community of Trion for the majority of my life, with the exception of when I was going to college. A lot has changed here since I was a kid. A lot of the houses which our Fathers and Grandfathers used to keep trimmed and fixed up have been bought up as rental properties and a lot of them have become run down relics of the past. Our demographic has changed, and we have a lot of Hispanic people in the community now. A lot of them are still tied to old world customs and haven’t learned American ways yet quite like we sometimes think they should. Yes, that means there is an occasional Chicken in the yards. Some of our former landmarks, such as the Park Avenue apartments, which used to be showplace housing have become uninhabitable due to flooding and things out of human control. Yet still it’s a good place. I went by the school yesterday and saw dozens of children, both brown and white, celebrating Cinco de Mayo. Bright costumes were shining in the sun and laughter drifted on the breeze. I thought how wonderful it is to have such a good school system here in our little town. Not perfect, but nothing ever is perfect. I ride the streets and see people steam cleaning their houses and sprucing up their yards, and I realize that not all of our houses are running down….there’s still pride here. People are walking the track trying to get healthy. We have wonderful Churches in the town for people to attend. We have people who care about the town and still want it to prosper. Yes, our treatment facility does stink, but it is NOT from poop. It’s from chemicals which are dumped into it from the mill. Plus, I haven’t met very many people at ALL in this town who think their “poop” doesn’t stink. I HAVE met a lot of people in this town who will help you if you need it, who will pray for you and with you if you want them to, who want a good place for their children to grow up, go to ballgames, go to school and have a great start to their lives. I have raised three children in this little town and I will have to say categorically that they turned out to be great people. That’s not just my opinion, just about anybody will who knows them will tell you so. And I don’t take total credit for it. As someone once said, It Takes a Village to Raise a Child. There have been many, many wonderful people in this town who have cared and helped, and even now there are many more here. To be degraded and made fun of by sarcastic people who have nothing else to do but be bitter and hate is an injustice. No town is perfect, no person is perfect but their is good just about anywhere. All you have to do is look for the good…not the bad.
December 31 2013
2014, YES IT IS…OR WILL BE
I was thinking the other day about the New Year, and wrote a little piece about it. I started trying to recall the first New Year’s celebration that is logged away somewhere on the hard drive of my brain. I can’t really remember a specific one. Isn’t that strange?
I remember early Christmases. Oh how well I remember that Red Wagon that Santa brought me back in 1954 when I was only 4 years old. We lived in a little old Mill house up on Sixth Street in the proverbial “Mill” town of Trion, Georgia. It was the last Christmas in that house before we moved to a new house that my Dad was having built in another part of town. I guess things were not too bad that year. If we could afford that wagon, and the set of Hopalong Cassidy guns and the outfit that I also got AND move later on to a new house then things were going pretty good. We lived in that new house for eight years until Dad could no longer afford the payments, and we had to move out, back to “Hot Town” just two streets over from where we were celebrating in 1954.
There were a lot of good Christmas memories at the “new” house. My brother was born while we were there. There were “cut down” cedar trees every year in front of the big “picture” window that my Mom was so fond of. There was the year of the Lionel train; there was a year in which I got a telescope to view the Universe and its vastness. I never appreciated the years there as I should have. There was the one wonderful Christmas back in 1962 I believe it was, when it snowed. One of the VERY few times that “heat miser” let it snow in Southland! How beautiful it was to come out and look through that big window that morning and see the snow falling in huge feathery flakes, and the snow already piled up high in wind drifts against the trees. Santa that was the year you were supposed to bring a sled, but we had to make do with cardboard boxes cut up into home made flexible flyers! And oh we did. We slid down the hill at the cemetery across the road from my house until the dead people there must have thought Jesus was coming back, what with all the commotion. I don’t even have a clue what I got that year for Christmas. I got a WHITE Christmas. That was enough. That was sufficient in itself to provide memories to last the rest of my life. Surely any toy would never have been impressive enough to do the same.
Oh yes, Christmas memories are not hard to come by. But New Years? That’s another thing altogether. My folks never made such a big deal about it. Some of the time we were at my Grandparent’s house and went to bed with the chickens even on New Year’s Eve. Even when we were at our own house, I can’t remember any New Year’s parties, or any celebrations that were held in anticipation of a New Year. It just came. The years just stacked up, and you greeted them with the same anticipation that you did any other day.
After my wife and I married in 1969, we started marking the New Year.
I think that every year now since we have been married, my wife and I have done something to mark the New Year. We let the kids sit up and watch Dick Clark blather on, and watch the big ball drop at Time’s Square and the “Peach” drop in Atlanta. I can’t remember if there were any years that we were not together, or not many really that the whole family hasn’t been around. Just the last few years, I think we have gone our separate ways to some extent. Most of the time now, we go to my daughter’s house and play board games and then do the count down. Backwards from ten to zero and ZOOM, in comes another year.
It’s all pretty humbling when you step back and think about it though. This year we are marking as 2014 A.D. (At least those of us who use the Julian calendar. The Chinese and the Muslims both have a different “New Year” then we do. This year the Chinese New Year starting on January 14 and will be the year of the Horse, very appropriate. The Muslims use the Hijah Calendar which was created by Mohammed) Most people make the mistake of thinking that A.D. stands for “After Death” when it’s Anno Domini or “In the Year of our Lord” It was “invented” if you will in/about the year 525 by Dionysius Exiguus to figure out when Easter was. But, I digress. Think of 2000 and 14 of those babies! Just think of all the monumental things that have happened in those 2014 years. Break out your history books sometime and thumb through them. There are some Earth Shaking years wrapped up in there. Some years that changed human history forever. Some of them are ones that are a no brainer. 1945, the year that the first Atomic bomb was used. That one changed the world forever didn’t it? There are some that are more obscure, but nonetheless just as important. How about when Martin Luther posted his 95 Thesis on the door of Wittenberg Church on October 31, 1517? Although Luther didn’t know it at the time, that year broke the hold of the Catholic Church on Christianity. Just think how much that change our world.
How about September 11, 2001 as a recent year that changed history? It definitely has, and will continue to, as we move through all of the ramifications and repercussions of moving through this Brave New World we are now entering into.
Think about all the new technology that has developed since World War II. For some reason, that particular War more than any other has seemed to be a catalyst for the development of Science in leaps and bounds. It’s amazing what has taken place, but it’s scary at the same time. I just heard a man talking on the Radio not more than a week ago saying how one day soon all humans would have special chips inserted into their hands so that they would not have to have cards, or even any other forms of identification in order to buy things, or go places. No more credit cards, or passports just that little non-removable chip to tell the world who you are. I am glad I am about past the point where I might be around when they institute THAT little bit of Science one of these New Years. I am afraid that they would just have to skip me on that one.
I have also heard where more and more people are now using biotechnology which identifies human embryos outside of the human body for things such as disease, genetic malformations, and most prevalently for the sex of the baby. Pretty soon it’s going to get down to the parents being able to say: “I want a boy with blonde hair and blue eyes, who has an I.Q. of at least 150, and we are going to want him to be a pianist” The new Eugenics, and yes it will probably get to that point one day if whoever decides on this type of thing (and who will that be?) decides to let it get that far. If it’s our Federal Government, then God help us, it will certainly be a mess. It could already be in use as far as we know in some countries out there. Think about it. There are a lot of countries who don’t even have the constraints of Ethics which we have in the U.S. (And that’s saying something right there, buddy!)
Now there is also word of a new Computer program being developed which can store everything which is on a human beings brain on the hard drive of the computer. It can’t store the emotion, or the spirit of the person. Just what they knew or know. Think about the uses for that, when a program can be bought which you can store Grandma or Grandpa’s knowledge on. Maybe they will fix it up where you can put a 3-D likeness of the person on there, and actually program it where it can seem like you are communicating with them. “Hey Grandma, do you remember back when I was 13, and fell down your steps and broke my arm?” “Of course I do Honey” it answers back. “That was really a bad day”
Scary.
They say what the mind of man can conceive can be turned into reality. And to think I have been reading Stephen King for years. Oh boy.
That’s all pessimism though, and maybe things will actually turn out for the good in some of the upcoming New Years. They are coming up with treatments and cures for more diseases every day, and doing things to relieve the suffering of humanity. Yes, believe it or not there ARE still some humans out there who work on things to benefit others without the thoughts of greed or manipulation guiding them. (Not enough of them though!)
I heard where there are Cancer treatments being developed through genetic research, where people’s own cells (I believe stem cells if I am not mistaken) can be used to attach a killer “trigger” to, which only affects cancer cells, so that when the cells are introduced into the body they kill ONLY the Cancer and leave everything else healthy. What a good year it will be when they can use that one.
That type of genetic research, where genes are modified to take care of human problems and suffering can be a good outcome. What if they could eliminate suffering of all kinds? Some people would think that a world without suffering would be wonderful. But I wonder. I wonder if ALL suffering should be eliminated. Seems like that would take away a little bit of what it means to be human, but that’s just my opinion.
Then there are those that will tell you that all of this must be leading up to the “end of time” Yes, that’s right, the end of all the “New Years.” In Christian beliefs Christ himself is going to return again in one of these New Years for those who are his children. According to many Christians, the signs are out there for all to see. The diverse Earthquakes and disasters (remember the tsunami several years ago on the day after Christmas?) the continuing problems in the Middle East, especially between Jews and Arabs. The widespread and very dangerous spread of new antibiotic resistant disease. The famine which affects more of the world every day. The lack of Love in people for other people. Matthew chapter 24 chronicles what Jesus had to say about it. Read it and decide for yourself. A lot of people already have.
I am not sure of everything that is happening, I will tell you that for certain. At my age, a lot of the new technology is fascinating, but it’s like a double edged sword. My religious indoctrination says the signs are out there, but the scientist in me is in conflict with the theologian. The reader of the written word in me, the seeker of knowledge, wants to keep abreast of everything that’s going on in the world, but sometimes over analyzes or doesn’t understand the significance of what is being input and processed by my teeny brain. The realist in me knows that things can’t stay the same, but the dreamer wants things to stay like they are, or go back to the way they were!
Remembering New Years? Do you see know why it’s hard to do. When you get stuff like this in your head, then it sometimes just starts to run together like syrup across pancakes.
I am glad it’s almost 2014, and I am super glad I have made it this far and if nothing happens I will be watching the ball drop in times square at midnight December 31, and I will be hoping that this year may just be THE year when everything starts to come together for the good of everyone in the world. Happy New Year to everyone in The Year of Our Lord 2014.
Dec 28 2013
As usual this time of year, the news did a piece on the “famous” people who have died in 2013. As they scrolled them…Tom Clancy, Patti Page, George Jones, and many more..I found myself getting a little misty. These people were and are the “backdrop” to our own, ordinary lives. Most of us will never get even that little 15 second blurb on a newscast. Yet we are here, we are living, and we have lost our ordinary loved ones, and mourned them with the heart of those who cared so much, so very much, for them. And so, against the backdrop and background of the famous, we weave the fabric of our lives with love…not with possessions which will surely pass away, but the true love of family and friends which will endure forever.
Dec 26 2013
2014 IS A’COMING.
One week from today it will be 2014. I turn around and look back at all the wonderful and terrible things that have happened in this world since my birth in 1950, and I am simply awestruck.
It seems like a totally different world now. For things to have moved on so quickly is also sometimes disconcerting to those of us who are moving into the “older American” demographic. I try to adapt to new things, and I think I do fairly well, but I don’t think it is possible to just pick it up like the youngsters who start out in life with all the new and modern electronic gadgets, gizmos, and equipment. My little two and a half year old grand kids amaze me at what they can do, which seems second nature to them, but are things which I consciously struggle with when I have to do them. All I can say, is that if things start to go too much faster, I am not sure I can hold on to the caboose of the train without falling off.
Yes, 2014 is coming. Coming fast, and maybe in some respects careening out of control.
I don’t like the way some things are happening. People’s love for other people, which has always been less then it should be, is getting to the point of being minuscule. Many of the things I read and see about the way humans are treating other humans makes me sick, and I guess it makes my kind of glad that I AM 63 years old. If I was a lot younger, I am not sure I could survive the world with the type of outlook that I have. But, I have to hold out hope that there are better days to come. I have to do that for my children, grandchildren and their unborn children who will come into this world one day and struggle to live in it.
2014 is coming and as we go through this season of “Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men” I really wish we all (including me) would try to live those words a little more, and not just sound them out meaninglessly into the air, never really thinking about what it would REALLY take for there to BE Peace on Earth.
I really think that the thing that we need to think about the most is what can we give to the world, and to the people we love? I have spent weeks now looking for presents, trying to select just the right things. Material things. But when I stop and think about it I know that one of these days all of these material things will be meaningless. When I think about it, the most valuable thing we can give to the ones we love is our time. That’s the thing I think I have been the worst manager of lately.
I work and work on things that I think are important in order to get extra money, or try to make ends meet, when I should be putting more faith in the one whose birth we celebrate during this time of the year to take care of things. We as humans always try to take too much on ourselves. We try to do everything on our own without giving our creator a chance to help us. I think during the coming year I am going to try and take a little more off of my shoulder’s and have faith that things are going to be ok.
I hope that during the coming year I can get back on track with my writing and communications, my music, but most of all just helping others when I can. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and let’s get ready to celebrate 2014, a year which is open for opportunities for us to become better people…to become better human beings. We only have to look just a tiny, tiny bit closer for the opportunities…they’re there, believe me, they’re there.
Dec 23 2013
AN OLD FASHIONED CHRISTMAS
As I have said before, we spent a half of a school year in 1960 at my Grandparent’s house in Blue Ridge because Mom was sick. I was enrolled in school there for almost half the year, which including the Christmas vacation for that year.
My Grandparent’s residence was a desolate place back then. It was the very last occupied house on Snake nation road at that time. A rough, ragged, rocky, muddy when it rained, and creek crossed road which took about 30 minutes to traverse from the turn off at the cemetery, to their modest gray wooded little two story house. Grandpa’s eight to ten bee hives stood like the sentinels of Stonehenge out in front of their house on top of huge flat rocks Grandpa had dragged up there on a wood sledge. I can imagine that their construction probably resembled in miniature that wonder of the English countryside, because the hill leading from the road to Grandpa’s house was extremely steep. A lot of times when it was wet and muddy my Dad had to get a strong running start from Snake nation road before he turned into Grandpa’s driveway and then as soon as he turned left, he had to gun the gas as hard as possible to try and make the curve up the hill to the tiny parking space in front of the house. Sometimes we just didn’t make it. The tires might have been a little too worn, or the mud a little too thick. We would end up having to park down below the beehives out in the high grass and grab our suitcases and trek up the hill, trying our best not to slip and fall flat on our faces.
But, this year my Mom, my brother and I were already there, and it was for Daddy alone we waited on the day before Christmas Eve. I heard his car first and went and stood out front, next to the porch. He came around the curve which was just in eyesight across the road from “Uncle Lark’s driveway. Lark Davenport’s was my Grandpa’s Uncle…his Mother’s brother and his farm sat across Long Branch creek from Grandpa’s house. The only way to get over there in a hurry was to walk the narrow little half log bridges that the two men had laid down across the fast running little creek in order to access each other’s house if the need arose. It rarely ever arose, but the logs were there just in case.
Daddy drove up the driveway and into Grandpa’s little parking space without any problems that day since it was dry…cold, but dry. It seemed like it was always cold in Blue Ridge that time of the year not matter what was happening elsewhere. We were in the “mountains” of Georgia…..the foothills of the Smokey Mountains which lay not too many miles away across the border into North Carolina.
I hugged my Dad, and my brother ran up to him and Daddy picked him up. Mom didn’t have much to say…things still very unsettled between them.
Grandma and I had been the ones to get the little Christmas tree a few days earlier. We had gone out into the woods and hiked around for quite a while, and found just a little old pine tree that looked nice. Grandma cut it down with the hatchet she had brought with her, and we took it back and Mike and I helped her decorate it. It was about the size of Charlie Brown’s little tree and Grandma had put it up on a table so that the lights could be seen…that one string of lights that she owned. There were maybe a dozen ornaments on it. It looked wonderful to me…as beautiful as any Christmas tree before or since. Grandma also hung our stocking from their mantle, on the far ends away from where the vent from the stove was. There were candy canes hanging around also, giving the old house a festive and fabulous look.
We always slept upstairs in the old house. Since the only source of heat in the house was a potbellied wood stove in the “living room” downstairs. During the cold Christmas weather we slept under 5 or six quilts upstairs. It was one of those situations where when you got warm, you didn’t move out of your “spot” If you moved over a foot, you would have to warm up that spot all over again. Most of the time you could see the fog from your breath, if you had your head out from under the covers. This was how we bedded down on Christmas Eve that year.
I never slept well on Christmas Eve. I always listened for Santa, but never quite heard him. Grandpa would always go “ho, ho ho” a couple of times, but I always knew it was him. He wasn’t fooling me. I heard the trunk of a car slam shut after we had been in bed an hour or so….then drifted off into a light sleep.
I heard Grandpa stoking up the potbelly stove about 5 am, and I waited the required 30 minutes or so until I knew the downstairs would be warm before I woke my brother up and we went running downstairs. All the grownups were already up and having coffee. Grandma already had biscuits in the oven, and we know that a delicious breakfast would soon be coming. Under the tree there were presents! In our stockings there was a plethora of oranges, apples, nuts, peppermint and other great hard candies. We could have our stockings but had to wait until after breakfast to tear into our presents.
We had three presents a piece from Santa, and one from Grandma and Grandpa. Four presents. In this day and age that would seem skimpy, but back then it seemed like more than enough. We place so much emphasis now on the number of gifts given, instead of the number of gifts given in love. There’s a big difference. I despise the TV commercial they have on nowadays with a woman called the “Gifter” whose only goal is to out give everyone else. That tells you where our society has gone.
This was the year I got a telescope, and Mike and I both got a “friction” stagecoach which shot sparks out the back when you revved it up. I also got a plastic “pinball machine” where you shot the balls up into the machine and see whether you get them to land in the highest number “slots”. I think I played that thing pretty much all day long that day. Grandma and Grandpa gave us some clothes of some kind, and I got a couple of new comic books. It was good…no, it was great.
Later on that day, the Uncles and Aunts, and numerous cousins came for dinner. Grandma’s little house was crowded to the gills. A lot of us ate dinner sitting out in the living room or even on the front porch. My cousins and I would find something to play or do after dinner. The food was nothing grand. I don’t remember if we had Turkey or roast beef. It really didn’t matter because Grandma could make anything taste good. I think later on that winter, we got iced and snowed in for over a week or so out there at the end of that old road. Grandpa had to shoot Robins for us to eat. They were delicious. When you’re hungry, I guess anything tastes good!
The air seemed to be filled with good will, good feelings and love that year. Later on, early in the spring we moved back home to Trion. Mom had gotten better, and our lives went back to normal…as normal as it could be in our family anyway. We continued to go to Grandma and Grandpa’s house pretty much every Christmas after that. Even after my wife and I married in 1969, we continued to make an annual Christmas trek to “the mountains” Certainly, even now when Christmas rolls around, I think of those days. The camaraderie, the food, the love that we all had for one another. Those were great Christmases, as are the ones we have now with all of our children and grandchildren. The common factor is family…and love, and remembering what Christmas is all about, not the presents, not the food or the games. It’s all about the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Merry Christmas everyone.
Dec 22 2013
Not all truths need to be spoken. We all have our own personal truths deep within us which never need to be revealed to any other person. Each of us is our own entity, our own Universe with our own solitary unique relationship to our creator. We share some attributes with all other human beings, but in our spirituality we share all of our soul with God, and will certainly return that gift upon our departure from this reality.
Dec 22 2013
I should have stayed away from the lead based paint chips on the windowsill of that old millhouse we used to live in on sixth street when I was three. They tasted so sweet though. I remember Daddy washing out my mouth, and busting my butt at the same time.
Now, I don’t know if I ate enough of that paint to get lead poisoning. I remember getting a super high fever not long after that, and my eyes crossed so badly Mom said I looked plum pitiful. I don’t remember ever looking in a mirror, so I can’t confirm that statement. I think it mad me meaner that summer. I remember throwing tantrums at home, and throwing rocks at my equally mean and slightly older neighbor Gerri Lynn. I think I stayed a little mean for a few more years.
After we moved to Simmons Street when I was five, I used to play with a kid just two doors down from me named Billy. We got mad at each other one day about something and I slugged him a good one right in the nose. Blood started gushing everywhere and scared me poopless. I thought I had killed the boy and turned around and ran like my tail was on fire back past Jake Woods house to ours.
That afternoon my Dad explained to me in no uncertain terms that it wasn’t right to throw the first blow..only in defense. My sore butt didn’t hurt me nearly as much as my conscious. I was truly sorrowful for what I had done. Dad took me down to the Arden’s house the next day and made me apologize.
I didn’t realize it at the time but that incident set the timber of my personality for the rest of my life. I have never since that day, through anger or strife struck “the first blow” I would and will defend myself and my family, but I will not start a fight.
I will remember that philosophy from here on out, and try and adhere to it here on Facebook also. Peace.
Dec 20 2013
Thirty eight years ago tomorrow, we had a little scare. It was snowing that year, in 1975..just flurries mostly. I was at the hospital with Paula…who was trying her best to have a baby. The labor was pretty hard and then finally the Obstetrician came and told me that the baby’s pulse was dropping because they thought his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck. They were going to have to do an emergency “C” section. This kind of news is scary…especially since we had lost Karrie Lynn back in 1970. (with Kirsten in between in 1972) I did the only thing I could…prayed. (and bummed a cigarette off my Father in law and smoked it…this was before I totally quit in 1979!) What seemed like an eternity later the Dr. told me I could come and ride down the elevator with my little baby boy, everything was O.K., and both Mom and baby were doing fine. I’m afraid I cursed the poor boy by naming him Larry Bowers Jr., but …we’ve always called him Teddy, or Ted though. He was our “Christmas miracle” that year and has always been a good boy. I’m proud to call him my son. Happy Birthday tomorrow Teddy Bear….
Dec 17 2013
A MUSICAL RAMBLING
My son has the 1948 model Philco combination radio/record player sitting in his house now. It’s the the one I spent countless hours sitting in front of during the first 8 years of my life.
There were radio shows on a lot. I first remember hearing people like Sid Caesar, and Red Skeleton on the radio. I remember listening to the Lone Ranger. Then there were the local radio shows. There was lots of preaching. Here locally we had “AA Tanner” and some others who I remember preaching on the radio a lot. I was a Baptist before I ever went to the first grade and just didn’t know it. A lot of my views have altered since those early years, but I still remember the musical cadence of many of those preachers…waxing and waning, I could see them swaying out and back in my mind and jumping up into the air when the spirit moved them.
We had maybe only half a dozen 33 rpm records. A lot of Perry Como, Martin and Lewis, Doris Day, and Bing Crosby. We had classical. We had some country…actually we had Hank Williams. There was a spot on the floor in front of the radio where my Mom put a throw rug. One of those round, braided really colorful ones. This was my spot. I wasn’t a very hard child to take care of. I could just be planted in front of the radio and left there. I knew how to change the records before I was potty trained really well. I imagine that caused a few “crisis moments” but really don’t remember. I had the radio, my comic books, and a little later on an old cracked baseball that the High School coach had given me, and a couple of worn out baseballs. I would get my exercise by going outside on nice afternoons and throwing those balls up into the air and them whacking them off into the distance before they hit the ground. I got really good at it.
I learned all of the songs on all of those records by heart. I thought I was a real hot shot singer. My Dad bought an Elvis 45 sometime in the mid 50’s. It was “Hound dog” and “Don’t be Cruel” I personally liked Don’t be Cruel the best. I learned those two by heart and on the night Elvis was on Ed Sullivan in 1957 he sang “Don’t be Cruel” We hadn’t had a TV very long, and when I saw “my song” being sung I jumped up and started doing my best Elvis right there in the little back closed in porch which Daddy had converted into a “den” I thought I was something…but then my Mom laughed at me….
I’m not sure if it was because she thought I was funny, or if I was doing a good job. But it embarrassed me. I’m not really sure why. Being the boy I was though…I never sang again in front of anyone for a long, long time. I would make sure nobody was around, maybe like when I was outside hitting the baseball. Maybe in the bathroom in the evenings while the water was running. Perhaps really low under the covers at night. I didn’t want to be laughed at again. I never talked to Mom or Dad about it, and they never thought anything about it, I guess. They just thought I had turned to baseball and sports.
I got talked into joining the “glee club” in the 8th grade. I think it was because I liked one of the little girls who was singing…I’m not certain. I still liked to sing, and I thought for sure that being surrounded by 15 or so other people singing would keep me from being heard. The guy who was over the glee club was Mr. John Carruth, who was also the Band director at the time. We were preparing music for Christmas, and I noticed Mr. Carruth kept leaning over and listening in my direction. He stopped the rehearsal and said “hey Bowers…sing the next verse by yourself” and I did…and so ended up doing my first solo ever of “White Christmas” at our school musical program that year.
Mr. Carruth had me sing a couple more times before he left Trion to move on to better things. I have to really thank him for giving me the boost of confidence I needed to realize that people would not laugh at me for singing by myself.
I ended up singing quite a bit in High School. We had quite a musical group of students at that time. It was the 60’s and folk bands, rock bands, and hippies were coming of age. I remember Mack Myers, and Agnew Myers, Susan Cavin and a couple more folks had a little “folk” band. They sang some Peter, Paul and Mary on stage at school. I really enjoyed it. We had a really good piano player…Ronald Whitley I believe it was. He was really great. My old buddy Dale Rosser was a good singer, and beat me out one year for soloist at Literary meet, although me and Agnew, and Johnny Brimer, and I think Randy Orr were the “barbershop” quartet and did a pretty fair job. Agnew’s Mom Ms. Sarah Myers was our “coach”…or mentor I guess you’d say. A really wonderful woman.
We had Larry Maddux and company playing country and rock and roll…I remember singing “Your Cheating Heart” with them one time at some program we were having…and from then on that dang Johnny Suits would call me “Hank” every time he saw me. Still did it when I went to work with him in 1988 at Crown Crafts. . Binky Dawson and Wayne Greene were great musicians. Several went on to become Band directors like Bill Locklear.
Yes, we had great bands, great musicians, and great individualists back then. I can’t name them all because there are so many, many more. I’m not sure if it was the times, or if there was something in the Trion water. I know that several of the above named beautiful people are gone now. I don’t know all the stories…I’m just kind of on the “edge” of things when it comes to keeping up with people. It’s a shame we have lost them, because when a musical person dies, some of the music of the world dies with them, and in this day and age, unlike the day and age we grew up in, that’s something we just can’t afford much more of…..
…..and by the way Mom…I know I took that laugh the wrong way….
December 15 2013
Society as we know it is bound to be in for some big changes in the near future. For all we know, they may already be occurring.
For some inexplicable reason, the brilliant minds of mankind, and their ability to expand technology, has always outstripped the capacity of the “General populace” to cope with the social ramifications of the new technologies. Most of us are able to use them, but we do not fully comprehend “what makes things tick” This had lead us into the trap of thinking WE control technology instead of vice versa. I have a chilling hunch that this will come back to be a nightmare for us at some point in the future. Science fiction authors already have imagined it.
Suppose there comes a day when there is a computer program which is sufficiently advanced that it can replicate itself, or worse yet which “guards” itself from being changed or manipulated by humans. Suppose there are robotics which are sufficiently advanced that super “brains” can be programmed into them. Then suppose they “decide” at some point they don’t require biological organisms anymore. Crazy science fiction? Perhaps. I personally think there needs to be a lot more research into the ethics of “artificial intelligence” We need to think a lot more about what we are doing in this area before we do it.
In the Jetsons cartoon, the Jetson family had “Rosie” the robot maid to do their bidding. I would hate for that role to be reversed. I know it sounds crazy, but the basis for an AI society is already in place. Since such intelligence would have no emotions or emotional attachment to their human creators, whose to say what would happen. My Father in law was one of the very first people to do AI research in the 60’s, and he was very leery of its roll in human society.
Technology is great, but what price will we eventually be paying for it if we do not use OUR brains now to look several moves ahead on the chessboard towards an end game. Are we intelligent enough even now to stop ourselves from being steamrolled?
I’m a good chess player, but the computer beats me every time when it’s set on “normal” The smartest Jeapordy champions of all time were annihilated by a computer brain. We all sit back and post on Facebook, and we then get some sleep. Computers never sleep, they run 24-7. Computer programs are created to solve problems. I for one hope they don’t solve the problem of how to take care of themselves without needing humans.
Thanks Matt Bowers for getting my brain going on this. It’s definitely a conundrum.
December 14 2013
OPENING AND CLOSING DOORS
Opening doors and closing them, both physically and metaphorically is all we do in life.
Before there was this medium in which to wax nostalgic, I was simply concerned only with what was going on with myself, my immediate family and those with whom I worked closely. For many years, that’s all it was. That’s all it had to be. Oh, I knew there was a world full of other human beings out there, but I wasn’t mindful of what was going on with them. Their joys, their sorrows, their inner thoughts, their rantings, their wisdom. They would shout their opinions into the wind, but it was just undecipherable whispering to me. I cared not because I knew not.
Upon entering into this unknown means of communication, I first sought out family, then old school friends, whom I had lost contact with. It was fun catching up with them, finding out what had happened in the last forty years. Drawing close to them again through common experiences and causes…sometimes agreeing on things, sometimes not. Thus is the way of human beings. We all have things in common, we all have differences.
In the last several years the differences have sometimes gotten so extreme that they cannot be solved “online”. A different “wild card” was introduced into the system which polarized America. I have been “unfriended” even as recently as this past month by kinfolk with who political differences couldn’t be reconciled. I have unfriended some people who I grew up with, because of some of the things they “post” I probably should have just ignored it all. I know I should have. I’m just not as good a person as I should be though, and sometimes I am too quick to hit the “goodbye” button and regret it later on.
I still see a lot of these people out in the “real” world and we speak and get along, and nobody ever mentions Facebook. Others take it quite personally however, and will turn and walk away if they see me coming. I have sent out friend requests to all of the people I have unfriended over the years and some come back and we are “friends” again. Some patently ignore my request and I know they are sitting there saying: “burn me once shame on you, burn me twice…shame on me” I guess that’s just the way it’s going to be from now on. The world of electronic friendships and relationships has fundamentally changed the way humanity interacts. You can’t cross back over some of the bridges you burn. A lot of them can be repaired with enough work, but some of them you just don’t feel like putting that work into the repairs. It’s just not worth it, because I know I will never change, and a lot of the people who I have known in my life never will change either. There’s no use in doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results. After all, that’s the definition of insanity, isn’t it?
Strangely, during these years, I began to become friends with people who I never knew before but who were friends with one of my friends. My relationship with people began to branch out beyond my little circle. I have become friends with people who have and hold the same beliefs and philosophies which I hold, and some who do not. I have met some people because of this medium and hold them in high regard and really, genuinely care about them, and through them, their loved ones. I have an artist friend with his beautiful Foxhound, my flea market friend with the same last name, and his wonderfully talented family. The former English professor of one of my lawyer friends. Another professor of biology who is a genius and writes complex biology textbooks. A wonderful, giving friend from New York who shares my love of photography. A cousin I never knew of before, who is my political consultant, and a wonderful family man. A friend who is a former librarian who lives just up on the mountain, who has a beautifully located home, and has many of the same interests. My scientist friend who is the son in law of one of my best FB friends. Several LGBTQ friends. On and on I could go…Many, many more.
I have branched out through these friends of friends, to their friends and relatives and have come to care for many of them. I have lost several. A wonderful teacher friend who fought cancer tooth and nail with singular focus, who finally and tragically succumbed to it. An Alabama friend, cousin of one of my other Alabama friends who was super close to me in philosophy of life, although he was about 10 years older than me. Whenever I would post a photo of Lookout mountain, he would remark about how he had spent 50 years on the “western” side of the mountain looking at it with a different view. He too, succumbed to cancer after a long fight.
I have many old friends who have reintroduced themselves back into my life…who I knew closely in my teenage years. Others who I knew marginally as I was growing up, but who have become close friends in the past few years. My librarian friend up near Nashville, a son of one of my friends who I went to school with…who grew up with MY oldest son. So on and so forth.
Growing closer in friendship again with many old friends through empathy and sympathy with their familial situations. Common likes…My old college buddy caving, photographer friend and his wife, who was my wife’s roommate and best friend in college. My UGA fan buddies, my Vegan and vegetarian friends. I could go on. I guess I’d better stop though.
I guess the most important thing is that for the most part, I love people. I really do. Even though differences can sometimes be extreme, I still love those people.
I love good discussions where if everyone doesn’t agree, we at least can have our opinions and be civil with each other (though I have NO tolerance for those who cannot be civil, and resort to name calling or vulgarity)
I love seeing the love that others have for their family and friends, and the photos of them they post showing their love. Their expressions of love for their family, and their thoughtful and loving posts many times touch me deeply.
There are many who would use this medium to spread their lies and their hate. Let’s not allow them to take over what could be, and had been up until then last several years, a positive thing. Don’t share one sided hate “memes” just to have something to post. Think before you do it “will this cause harmony or discord?” If you want to post a page at least put a little preamble of your own words on it to let others know your purpose in sharing. If you have an opinion on something, use your own words. Don’t let others who are extremists use you as a tool. I’ve been guilty but I’m honestly trying to do better!
Love not hate. Empathy and sympathy, not empty feelings. We can use all things for the good of others if we only pause to think, to consider, to put ourselves in the shoes of others for a few miles before we judge.
We now have a pandemic to try and continue to negotiate, and many, many challenges which go along with that. It will be harder to solve these things if we continue to hate and not help.
Peace to you all.
December 13 2013
As for Christmas presents, I have to say I have nothing left of any present I received as a child. Nothing physical anyway. I have vivid memories though of many wonderful things. An entire Hoppalong Cassidy outfit complete with guns when I was four. Oh yes I learned to shoot at an early age. A real Daisy BB Pistol at 8 years old. The front of it broke down and you could shoot one BB, pellet, or dart at a time. I’m ashamed now to admit it, but I once killed a sparrow with it. I was like Opie Taylor though, and cried. Then I went and buried it. I never shot another living thing with that gun. At 10 I got a Schwinn Bicycle, and learned to ride it quickly. I stayed around the streets close to home though. I ranged far from home at times, but usually on foot with a big stick in my hand or a baseball bat on my shoulder. At 11 years old, I got a reflective telescope which I never learned to use. Always every year, there were books, comics and classics. There were ball cards. At 12 years old a Lionel train. I remember all these things now so clearly, as I write if them. I could go on and on…My first record player at thirteen…but, it’s not the things, which are all now long gone which counted. My Dad helped me learn to ride my bike, and to shoot my gun. I remember the look of happiness in HIS eyes even now…just like it was yesterday. His laughter at my foibles and mistakes. That familiar laugh, so distinctive. It’s not the gifts. It never really was. I would bundle them all together, all of them I ever got just to hear that laugh once more. Christmas should be more about presence than presents, more about the giving of memories than the receiving of things which do not last. Christmas is what you receive in your heart and keep forever.
Dec 7, 2013
Does anyone dispute the fact that animals can hear sounds that humans cannot. I think that this is a pretty solid statement. Can some animals see things which humans cannot? Again, I assume they can. Are there things in this world then, which we humans cannot see or hear? According to this logic, yes.
I often wonder how far this assumption can be extrapolated. Are there things in this world with which we live simultaneously side by side, in the same space and in the same place that we occupy which cannot be seen or heard by any living thing?
I want to call Stephen King up and get his opinion on this if I can find his number….
December 6, 2013
Lottery time and Song Lyrics
Ok, call me a saint or a sinner….it don’t really matter.
There’s a really big lottery coming up tonight. Around 297 million dollars. I really hope that I win it. I could sure use it. Least I think I could.
I guess a lot of people feel that way don’t they? One thing about the lottery is that it’s a cheap dream for a lot of people. What else can you pay a dollar for and get such wonderful daydreams about? I know a lot of people say it’s gambling and you ought not to waste your money on it, but I betcha’ that a lot of them put up a few dollars when it gets up in the 200 million+ range. I bet there are even a few preachers out there who secretly shell out a few bucks on it. I don’t blame them. I don’t think it would be a sin if they won it. After all, they would probably give most of it to their churches, and keep just enough to be comfortable, wouldn’t they?
After taxes and all, I heard it would be about a 90 million dollar take home. I sit around and think about what to do with all that money. First thing everyone wants to do, of course is quit their jobs. That’s a prerequisite isn’t it? I don’t have a job now, so I guess I could skip that one…or maybe keeping up with that money would be my new job. Next thing is to go out and buy a new car and house. I know of a house close by this little town I live in that I want. It’s up on the mountain and they want a couple hundred thousand or so for it. Chicken feed after tonight! And that car? I have always liked those sleek Jaguars, no Porches though. Nothing too pretentious mind you. And then, I would pay off the few companies I owe money to. Otherwise, I am going to be paying them until the day I die. After that, who knows?
Maybe a little Norwalk Terrier to go with the dogs I have now for a pet. Take a trip to Disney World, and actually stay on site for once. Buy my wife a better diamond. Give my kid’s a million or two. After that, I guess I would just have to figure out some kind of hobby that I enjoy. I think I would buy a little RV, a small one… and go around to flea markets and antique malls and look for things to resell and make money on. I kind of enjoy looking for unfound treasures, I guess. That way I could do a little traveling. But then again, I don’t have much of a desire to go off too far. I’m not sure about the trips to Europe and all that stuff. I might like to take that Cruise that goes down the East Coast of the U.S. though.
One thing they always say about people who win big lotteries, is that it messes up their lives big time. I would like to think that I could handle it, but who knows. I’d like to try it and see.
How’s that old Rock and Roll song go?
“The best things in life are free
But you can keep ’em for the birds and bees.
Now gimme money (that’s what I want)
That’s what I want (that’s what I want)
That’s what I want (that’s what I want), oh-yeh,
That’s what I want.”
Or then there’s that other one that they play on “The Apprentice” :
“Money money money money, money
Some people got to have it
Some people really need it
Listen to me y’all, do things, do things, do bad things with it
You wanna do things, do things, do things, good things with it
Talk about cash money, money
Talk about cash money- dollar bills, yall”
Really though I like this song by John Mayer:
Me and all my friends
We’re all misunderstood
They say we stand for nothing and
There’s no way we ever could
Now we see everything is going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don’t have the means
To rise above and beat it
So we keep waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
It’s hard to beat the system
When we’re standing at a distance
So we keep waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
Now if we had the power
To bring our neighbors home from war
They woulda never missed a Christmas
No more ribbons on the door
When you trust your television
What you get is what you got ’cause when they own the information ooohhh,
They can bend it all they want!
That’s why we’re waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
It’s not that we don’t care
We just know that the fight ain’t fair
So we keep waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We’re still waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
One day our generation
Is gonna rule the population
So we keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
Now we keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
Waiting on the world to change
Waiting on the world to change
Waiting on the world to change
Guess I really don’t “need” that lottery money after all…maybe I could “use” it though and try and change the world what little I could…
December 4 2013
I was reading the other day about how a kindle which is full of information weighs just a thousands of an ounce more than a new one. I also read where the same computer hard drive full of information weighs a thousands of an ounce more than a new one. Been tested, it’s a fact. Therefore you could assume that even virtual information has weight. Surprising, right?
I wonder if our brains weigh more, the smarter we are? I don’t think it works the same with humans. They say Einstein’s brain was kind of small weight wise as compared to a normal brain, yet he was a genius. One thing I believe though, is that there is weight to the spark of life which makes us human. That “soul” which resides within us, which dictates to us all our living days what we do. That spark weighs so little it’s probably just a thousands of an ounce or maybe less. Buy oh, it’s the heaviest light weight thing in creation.
I have witnessed the death of both my parents. My Dad was still warm when I got to him, and I was holding my Mom’s hand when she took her last breath. And when they took them away although they were dead weight, they were like the thinnest tissue paper in looks. My Dad was always like a little hard rock up til the day he died, but he was shrunk down like a shriveled little sponge after he lost that tiny little bit of weight they call the spirit.
I don’t know the weight of the spark of life, but I have seen its impact. It’s a big one. Better to get done what you need to get done before it’s gone. All the forgiving, the loving, the words you need to say or write. All the singing, the dancing, the hugging, the kisses. All the things you are putting off until a better time…there is no better time. When you lose THAT little bit of weight, well there is no more time.
Writing for Sanity's Sake 