Day: August 26, 2018

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Reverie

I love sunrises and sunsets. Trees and rivers…beaches and snow capped mountains. Birds and bees, foxes and beaver. I have seen all of these things with my own eyes and I know them.

Almost anything which exists in nature has it’s own beauty and symmetry.

But I also love churches and cemeteries. I love bridges and lighthouses…rusty old wagon wheels and sewer covers. Remains of ancient buildings or a lovely finely crafted arrowhead. These things created by man also have beauty.

I have appreciated the chance to live, and to witness these things, and so much more.

I love the family of which I am a part. I continue to be here because of them. I want to protect them, though I know they are well able to protect themselves. My children long ago grew to adulthood.

All things change.

The personal relationships. The human achievements. The natural world. They all change. We humans are foolish to even believe we will always be the dominant force on this planet. That will also eventually change. Whether by our own hand or by nature’s whim. We are transient. We are today’s dinosaurs.

We ought to be smart enough to pull together as mankind, and reach out to the stars, and try and extend our race to some of those other Earth like planets which are just waiting for us. But instead we are petty. We are too busy hating each other for our miniscule variations in skin pigment, sexual attraction, and perceived different philosophical values, to see that we are all …simply… human.

I think daily of things we might do to make ourselves of service to each other. Simple things…nothing complex. Compassion, love, kindness, recognition, respect, civility, friendship, giving. One word sermons. I think daily of my age, and of the chances I have had to be better, but was not. I hope I can live long enough to practice some of what I should have been doing all along.

I would not wish to be young again…not in this day and age. It has taken me all these years already to realize how deep are my shortcomings. I wouldn’t relish reliving those learning experiences.

Look at yourself in the mirror, where you are now in your journey, and ask yourself if you are happy with what you see. Listen to yourself and decide if what you are saying or writing is helping or hurting other people. Sometimes you may have to change in order to make a difference for the positive in this life.

It’s not as hard as we make it out to be…

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Hispanics

I was talking to the two Hispanic men who delivered my mattress today about working. I was their last stop at 4:45 pm and they were headed all the way back to Suwanee. I didn’t understand all they were saying but the tired “whews” of straining to set things up, and carrying in a heavy couch to the living room, caused me to note they were quite tired. I offered them a cold coke to take with them, and my sincere thanks for their professional attitude and care in handling my things. They left me the cloth furniture wraps, noting they make good rugs for the little dogs to use for beds. I thanked them again. And they were off on a three hour drive home.
I didn’t ask them their immigration status, or if they had an anchor baby. I didn’t think about if they were talking a job some regular American would want. They told me they started at 6 am this morning. Fourteen hour days delivering furniture. Do you want to do it? I don’t. Didn’t appear to me they were on welfare. I don’t think many of them actually are. As a supervisor in carpet mills the last ten years I worked, I had many of them working for me. Working, and paying FICA, and income tax. I live in a town full of Hispanic people. I watch them get in their cars at 6 o’ clock in the morning for a hours ride to work. I see them walking to the mill here in town. I see them start many churches in our county. I see them taking their children to school, wanting better education for their kids than they have. I see them playing with, and loving their families.
For several years back in the late seventies into the mid eighties I made mattresses…hourly pay plus a bonus for everything over production. Ten hour days and back breaking work. I surpassed production every day, because we needed the money. I had three kids and bills to pay. Sometimes we didn’t work full weeks. Times were hard for us. I went on to do better, but I haven’t forgotten the weight of a deluxe king size mattress on the shoulder.
It’s a good thing to remember from time to time when you are contemplating disrupting another human beings wellbeing and the care of their family.

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The Perspective of Life

Everybody looks at things from a different perspective. Two people looking at the same exact painting see it differently. People looking at a situation see different parts.

Where one will notice the shadows, the other will see the light. One may be sad, the other retrospect.

It is amazing how we humans are so much the same, yet so vastly different. The little differences and variations in our genetic makeup coupled with our environmental immersion makes for a jumbled up, mixed bag of what we call humanity.

Most of the time, our nuanced differences produce humans who can at least tolerate each other, and at the highest level love each other. The occasional deviant does occur, however, but generally those are people who have lacked love as part of the equation of their life.

So, when you interact with others, try the love formula first, second and third. I’ll almost guarantee it will produce a good result.

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Moving Day- 2016

As I lay here this last night in my bed, in this place, I consider that it is a home which is soon to become simply a house.

I will take the memories with me.

I will take fall, winter, spring and summer.

I’ll take all we have done here, and roll it up into a big old ball of love for those I have done those things with, and stick it in my pocket. And it will stay there always for me to pull it out and look at from time to time. Sort of like a pocket watch of days gone by.
On to new adventures. On to new and bright memories with all those I love so much. You know who you are. You all are the people “worth melting for” and I would do it for any of you.

Now for some sleep…there’s a long couple of days ahead.

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Four Letter Words

Two four letter words constitute the opposition of human nature: Love and Hate.

Which side do you stand on? I fight hatred tooth and nail, and blood and guts everyday in the inside of my mind, but I am always led to the place in my heart….in my heart…not my mind, where love dwells.

You cannot speak hate, preach hate, write hate, demonstrate hate or show hate and be what God means for we humans to be. It’s not possible, it’s just not…no matter what anybody, anywhere tells you to the contrary. The universe was not conceived in hatred.
You can do what you want, but I’m going to always try love first before I have to resort to action in order to preserve those who are most precious to me.

Think it over….

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Social Media Journals- Part 2

July 19 2012

 

Corporations are not people. Moreover, by the legal way a corporation is set up, its only motive is profit. ….. and the sole purpose of a corporation is to make money for its shareholders, in any manner possible. If that means shipping jobs overseas to save money, they will. If it means buying the cheapest goods from other countries to make their goods, they will. It means advertising in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, etc. for workers who WILL work for whatever the corporations want to pay, they will. Corporations have that legal responsibility to their shareholders and doing the “right” thing does not matter to them. Do some corporations give to charity? Yes. But it is a fraction of their profits. Google the decadent salaries and bonuses of the top officers in the top corporations. Is anyone really worth THAT kind of money? Now consider the workers at the bottom of the chain. Consider a local corporation in this county whose workers haven’t had a raise in 12 years. One of the reasons is that the Hispanic workers who comprise a large portion of that work force are satisfied with what they make. Large Corporations want to take over the political works of this country, and by and large have already succeeded. Congressmen and Senators don’t make a move without considering whether or not what they do is in the interest of their BIG money contributors. and most of those are Mega corporations. We are WELL on the way in this country to having what we know as the “middle class” eliminated. Corporations don’t want a “healthy” middle class. They want the elite who run things and they want the “worker drones” at the bottom of the chain. They don’t want a well educated, pro benefit, politically strong Middle Class. They are getting their way, and I am not sure that at this point they are stoppable by any means the American people have at hand.

 

July 26 2012

 

Grandfather and the Honey Bees

The last time I ever saw and spoke with my Grandfather in 1992, he was 98 years old. His mind was ravaged by Dementia and his kidneys were failing. Yet, all he could talk about that day were his bees. He wasn’t making much sense about anything else, but for some reason that day he had the bees on his mind. You see, he had been a beekeeper almost all of his life, and he was worried about them. Very worried.

As far back as I can remember there were always bee hives surrounding his old two storied clapboard house. They were not out in some distant field somewhere. They were within feet of the front porch, resting on large flat rocks that Grandpa had brought down behind a mule from near the top of “Johnny” Mountain which loomed tall just across Uncle Lark’s corn field straight out in front of the home place.

They were neat little white painted wooden boxes, with another one of the flat rocks on top. It was simplicity in design beyond today’s comprehension, but workable nonetheless. I used to be mesmerized as a child watching these tireless workers fly in and out, and in and out of the little hole cut in the bottom of the wooden box, which served as their one entrance and exit from the hive. I could watch them for hours on end and never tire of the wonderment of their movements and the soliloquy of their buzzing symphony.

They would zip around my head as I sat on the front porch swing, and I once made the mistake of swatting one of them when he got too close. Not only did I get a sting from the bee, but a lecture from Grandpa. “They won’t hurt you, if you don’t hurt them first” he said. “They’re our helpers, and you just gotta let ‘em be” I had to take this advice literally, coming from a man who more often than not would rob a hive of bees wearing no extra clothing except for a heavy pair of leather gloves. He talked to them as he took out the honey, telling them he was leaving enough for them to “eat” during the winter.  He talked and hummed all the while he was working with them, like a Momma soothing a baby….

 

But late that afternoon in 1992 he was worried about them.

 

“Will you take care of the bees this year?” he asked “I just don’t think I will be up to it”

“And mind you, don’t swat and kill none of them, we need them every one”

“Sure Grandpa” I answered. “I’ll take care of them”

Those bees were long gone, they had been since the tornado in 1973, or shortly thereafter, but I told him I would care for them.  I hope he was comforted somewhat by that “little white lie” he seemed to be, anyway.

 

Now we are looking at the very real prospect that something is going wrong with our Honey bees. The populations are disappearing, and with them the possibility of apple and peach trees that don’t get pollinated, corn fields and soy bean crops that may be lost, and perennials that may not bloom again. How important these creatures, who we hardly ever notice unless they sting us, really are to our society. If they were all to disappear today, would humanity survive?

There are few things which I remember so well, as the sweet taste of the fresh harvested honeycomb, and how the honey would drip from the edges of my mouth when I bit into it. I would hate for my grandchildren and their grandchildren to never have that chance.

I personally feel like I have let my Grandpa down because when I spoke with him that day in 1992, I thought it was just the ramblings of an errant mind, and I didn’t think anymore about it.

But Grandpa knew how important these insects were. “They’re our helpers, we need them everyone” he had said.

We certainly do, and all of us had better realize it before it’s too late.

 

 

August 5 2012

 

The things we really need are pitifully few compared to the things we think we want. I now want so much less…but I need so much more. And my enemy Monster Eater time keeps taking big chunks out of my ability to secure these needs. I am beginning to doubt myself considerably for the long haul and think I need to begin sprinting.

 

August 22 2012

 

Ok…all you folks who work at fast food restaurants at the windows….the phrase is: “Sorry you had to wait” NOT “Sorry ABOUT your wait… (Weight??) The first time someone said this to me…I thought they musta’ noticed my big belly going through Wendy’s to get ANOTHER large Frosty. Well….after losing some of the belly I belatedly realized they were trying to apologize for their untimeliness in getting me my “fast” food, after only a 15 minute weight. I really got the message one day when a little lady brought my bag of Chicken out to the truck and says: “Sorry about your weight…” and I said in return: “Well. I’m sorry that you’re short!” After she glared at me and stomped off I figured I would quit trying to get the point across in a “comedic” way. In any case…if you’ve had this phrase used on you, well just tell the person…”hey, I ain’t THAT heavy.”

 

August 23 2012

 

I now have the cleanest squirrel in the State of Georgia living in the tree in my front yard. The bold little feller is a permanent resident of the Ivy encased Elm tree that stands on the West side of the house providing much needed evening shade. I water my plants regularly and refresh the water in the birdbaths every day or so, and I use a hose pipe with a “sweeper” nozzle so I can get out to the farthest reaches of my postage stamp size yard. I was over next to the fence, just fixing to quit when the “dirty” little squirrel climbed down off his limb onto the top of one of my birdhouses. Seeing that he needed a bath, I screwed the nozzle to “high” which produces the strongest stream of water possible. Pointed the hose in his direction and let go of the crimp in the hose pipe I had been holding. Now, I’ve seen squirrels make some amazing moves…they are quite acrobatic creatures, but when that stream of water hit that little bushy tailed rodent he did a double back flip with three and a half turns straight UP onto the limb above his head. It took him two more seconds to get back up to his home base…where he sat chattering and shaking like a wet dog. Well. Now he’s clean and I ain’t seen him trying to rob the poor finches today…..

 

September 10 2012

 

Songs without Music and a melody without words. Yesterday I had both and they were sort of unexpected. We went to Church and my daughter Kirsten was scheduled to sing a solo. She told me it was a new song and it was one she really liked, and it had spoke to her immediately when she first heard it. When she came up to the front and looked back to the sound engineer for the track to start, he shook his head…”nothing there” he said. My daughter kind of had that look on her face which said “this is not good” but…as things go, the CD wouldn’t work and she undertook to sing the song acapella. She started out on key and her voice built as she sang the song…I was able to listen closely to the words of the song “Blessing” more than I would have normally been able to…there was no music, no melody to get in the way of the beautiful lyrics and the story they told. It was a blessing. Later…we went to my niece Shanna’s house for dinner. Her little daughter Jenna, who has Down’s syndrome, met me at the door and I went into the living room and started to play with her. I haven’t been around her as much as I should have and I was a little worried about communicating with her…but we got right on, started playing with the big mega “stacking” blocks. I started to sing a song just for the heck of it…I think it was “Unchained Melody” She looked at me and just stared and then she got a funny little look and took me by the hand and led me back to her little room. She pointed at her CD player and turned it on so that the music played and then pointed at me. She was telling me “look this is where my music comes from” From then on the rest of the time I was around her I could feel the communications coming from her through her eyes. The melody coming from her heart. No words had to be said; no lyrics had to be written. I know it must be hard to have that music in your heart without a way to speak it…how frustrating it must be at times when you know what you want to say but cannot say it…, you know what you want to share but other people cannot receive your sharing. So….the song without the music was a blessing…and so was the little girl’s music from her heart without the words. Both meant so much to me.

 

September 15 2012

 

Death and Fear…

I’m afraid of heights. I also don’t like flying. I don’t like big crowds and speaking in front of a group of people terrifies me. It’s funny how things that are simple and basic to some people make other people’s knees turn to jelly.

I don’t know where a lot of these fears came from. Some of them have just developed over the years. Some are fears we all have always harbored. I have always been afraid of death. I never even wanted to think about it until the last few years. It’s a subject that most of us definitely want to avoid. I think sometimes we feel like if we talk about it, it might jinx us and we will end up on the “mortar board” at some funeral home before the days out. Also, it’s a pretty depressing subject to broach. Nobody wants to be depressed, so nobody talks about it. I can’t remember the first time I thought about it, and was scared. I think it was when I was about four years old. Really, it’s true. As a little kid when I should have been thinking about playing cowboys and Indians, I was mulling over the great unknown. It’s been a bummer over the years.

Lately, I have come to the conclusion that by talking about death maybe we can make it less scary. I am not as afraid of it as I used to be. It’s not the little kid fear of going to hell and burning up in a blazing fire type fear anymore. It’s more of just an apprehension of something unknown. It’s a disappointment that I might not be around to see my loved ones complete most of their journey that they have started. It’s the conversations and contact with my family and friends that I don’t want to give up. The touches and looks of people you love, and who love you. Most of all, it turns out that it’s a selfish thing. Imagine that. I have so many selfish reasons for living that I don’t want to die and give them all up.

I don’t want to give up the beautiful sunny days like the ones we had this past week. I don’t want to give up the good books that I enjoy reading every day. I don’t want to give up the glorious music I listen to every night.

But, it’s not what we want that we get, is it?

There are so many theories and theological thesis about what happens to us after we die. It’s hard to pin one down and stick with it. One thing that I can assure you though is that it will be different from any of them. I don’t think that man has been given the knowledge, through any type of religion or science of what really happens. I am a Christian and believe Jesus lived, but I know that some people may not be the same as me.

It may be that we just have peace. Peace would be nice; I’ll take that over some of what I’ve heard over the years.

I’ve seen a lot of people going through unbelievable suffering, or who no longer know who or what they are who would take peace too. There was a little old lady who was “rooming” next to my Mother at the nursing home a couple of years ago who was there one day and gone the next. She was in bad shape. She was ready for a rest, and she got it. I think if you could have broken through the wall of her senility she would have told you she was ready. A lot of times people outlive the desire to live, and when they do that, they are ready for peace. I am sure she wasn’t scared of it. Maybe welcomed it.

As long as we have the desire, then we should “keep on truckin’” as we used to say back in the 70’s. It’s when we lose the desire, due to things that are happening to us physically, that it becomes a hardship to keep on keeping on.

So, I guess as my perspective has changed from that little shivering four year old kid, who shouldn’t have even known what death was, to the more knowledgeable but equally unknowing 66 year old that I am now am. I still have my desire to live and hope that I keep it for a long, long time to come. I hope all of you do also. But, when we are ready for peace, I hope we find it and that it turns out to be better than we ever imagined.

 

 

September 17 2012

 

Deep thoughts from a shallow mind…..

I got to thinking. What is fulfillment? What does it mean? How do we get it? God in Heaven it is SO TOUGH. And then, I thought some more.

If I have ever done or said a kind word to someone when they needed it, then I am fulfilled.

If I have ever given good advice to my children, whether by pure accident, as would be the case most of the time or by chance of experience then I am fulfilled.

If I have ever kissed my wife, and she was satisfied that she had married the right man, then I am fulfilled.

If I have ever sung a song that brought out an honest emotion, or written a word that sparked a thought in someone’s mind, then I am fulfilled.

If I have ever fed a hungry animal, albeit a bird, cat, dog, squirrel, or any other living thing that God has created, then I am fulfilled.

If I have ever thought a thought that was pure enough for God to appreciate, then I am fulfilled.

If I have ever cooked food for loved ones, or strangers that they enjoyed or that made them happy, then I am fulfilled.

If I ever told a joke that got an HONEST laugh, then I am fulfilled.

I have seen the Ocean on both sides of this wonderful country and walked in the sands and didn’t do it until I was 16 years old. It was so wonderful, so I am fulfilled.

I have stood besides ruins of a culture over 2500 years old, and I am fulfilled.

I have touched the skin and felt the warmth of every person who I have loved the most on this Earth, and have been fulfilled.

I have eaten my Grandmother’s suppers, and have been filled and fulfilled.

I have listened to my Grandfather play the banjo and sing.

I have found an arrowhead in a field, and thought about the people who once populated this land, and was genuinely sorry for what they had to go through, and I am fulfilled.

I have seen a Golden Eagle in flight.

I have listened to the Beatles, Elvis, Mahalia Jackson, Percy Faith, Perry Como, Rod Stewart, Johnny Mathis, The Blues Brothers, The Righteous Brothers, Ray Boltz, Bing Crosby, Sinatra, Dean Martin, Laura Fabian, Eva Cassidy, Judy Garland, Jerry Lee Lewis, Clint Black, The Everly Brothers, and on and on. God I love music so much. I will miss it one of these days.

I have watched Meteors pour from the sky at such a rate that no one could have counted them.

I have seen an eclipse of the Sun and the Moon, and have seen a Comet in the Eastern sky during the early morning.

I have caught the tears of my children and grandchildren and tasted them. I have touched them when their skin was so soft and delicate that my whiskers made little red spots.

I have played my guitar to the UTTERMOST fulfillment in my younger days, and oh what a catharsis it has been for me. Bless the person who invented it.

I have eaten wild onions and smoked rabbit tobacco. I hated them both but it was a matter of fulfillment.

I have given money to many a homeless person, and have never told a soul.

I have been in the middle of Storms of Nature and Storms of life that I did not think I would ever survive, but I did. And I have been fulfilled.

And the list could go on and on forever.

I have loved this life, and the souls of the people that our creator has chose to populate the bodies of the ones I love. I love it still every day. I want it still every day. I am afraid of it still every day.

I have witnessed things every day that I could not have imagined when I was a child.

I have seen the wonderful side of mankind first hand, but have seen his terrible wrath on film and video, and in person. But strangely that also is fulfillment still.

I know that those who cannot do the things I have named above lack something which they can never, ever find. And they will NEVER be fulfilled.

I don’t know what will happen on the day I leave this earth. But I have been fulfilled.

 

 

October 2, 2012

 

Someone passed out of memory today….
My Grandmother Stewart lived to be 100 years old, and she often told me that she would be “alive” until she passed out of memory, meaning that as long as someone who knew her remembered her…then her memory would live one and she would continue in some measure to “live.” So, therefore, somewhere someone passed out of memory today and “died” completely. The last person who remembered them passed away. They became a part of History and no longer a part of the community of life.

My Grandmother stills does live, because there are many of us living who remember her, all that she did for us…how much she loved us. How she cared for us, comforted us. She has great-grandchildren who will be alive for MANY years to come who will carry on her memory. That’s what I am trying to do with my little Grandchildren, with hope that someday, somehow, long after I am gone that I will still live in their minds and hearts, and that those memories are good, genuine and loving like those of my Grandmother are to me. And one day, when I do pass into History…it will be all good; it will be alright…it will be peace eternal.

 

 

November 12 2012

 

After tomorrow I am going back to reading my books instead of checking Facebook. I am going to take my walks during “News time” I am going to start taking more pictures again…fill up my birdfeeders and watch the squirrels “rob” them and not begrudge them a single seed. I am going to cook some new recipes I have been looking at and pay more attention to my Lab. maybe throw her ball a dozen extra times a day. I am going to say I am sorry to anybody out there in this “virtual” world I have angered or hurt your feelings…it was not intentional. There is a lot of life out there…out from behind these electronic gizmos. I did not use to need these things to be happy. I am posting a little placard where I can see it every day that is gonna say “You only live once…do not waste the time you have left” I am so imperfect…and yet I am loved. What more could one ask?

 

November 11 2012

 

THANK YOU VETERANS

My Dad was always the consummate “veteran” After serving in the Navy from 1945-52 he developed a lot of “Navy” habits. I can remember many times of waking up in my very early grade school years to “Hit the deck, hit the deck” What is the deck, and why…do I want to hit it, I thought? It seemed rather strange back then, but now as I look back through nostalgic eyes, it was rather natural. Having only been out of the service for a few years back in those days, Dad still had the “Navy” in his blood. He just wanted me and my brother to experience some of the rigors of “boot camp” which he had gone through, so he was simply running his own “mini” version with us.

There were also those many, many “Navy” stories. The knockdown drag out fights with fellow ship mates over some trivial slight magnified by being in close quarters out on the Ocean for so long. Then there were the memories of the horrors of death and starvation in a post War Korea, and in China, with human beings literally freezing to death in the streets. The many slick trades of cigarettes for goods…like the set of painted porcelain dragon china which hung in Mom and Dad’s kitchen for so long. The earlier memories of the last days of World War II, first being a gunner’s mate on the ship’s huge guns, then moving on to the 115 degree boiler room and advancing in rank. I was regaled by all these tales more than once, and in retrospect I was enthralled by the listening. There were so many more of them, and they filled my childhood with wonder and awe at the things which went on in the big World.

Dad never lost his allegiance to his flag and country by one iota as he got old. Though he hated War, and told me that many times, he always respected the people who were serving their country. One of my favorite photos of him is of him standing there holding an American flag and looking wistfully out at the camera…perhaps thinking about those days that he fought for his country, watched some of his friends and ship mates die for their country, and came back home a changed man.

I want to thank all of you Veterans today for YOUR service. I too have always been against War, but never have I ever had anything but respect for the human beings who have to stare death and hardship directly in the eye in service to our country. Thank you, and bless you.

 

 

November 2012

 

Some try to fan the flames while others try to quench them. In the meantime some stand and watch….and go for popcorn.

 

November 15 2012

 

It’s going to be an Old Fashioned Christmas this year….everyone is getting a paper bag filled with penny candies, oranges, apples, peppermint candy and nuts…..I used to enjoy these when I was a kid, but I suppose that was a “lifetime” ago. I remember sitting at the foot of a Christmas tree which was just a spruce that my Grandparents had cut down, and opening a few presents…but I still loved that ol’ “brown bag” of goodies that the “Old Zion” Baptist Church used to give all the kids. Christmas seems to be so much more complicated nowadays, what with “Black Friday” and all the emphasis on shopping and gifting. I always enjoy the “kick off” being the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and watching “Miracle on 34th St.” NOT, Halloween and “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” We can’t seem to see the forest for the trees anymore… As for me, I’ll take good health this year….and oh…a brown paper bag of goodies…that’s about it.

 

November 27 2016

 

I keep hoping to wake up some morning and see on the news that at some place in the world, people have broken out in spontaneous and highly contagious love.

 

I spent some time earlier looking at some things under high magnification. What appears ordinary when viewed with the naked eye is extraordinary under magnification. I went to take my dogs out and the stars were coming out and looked gorgeous. What is obscured by the light of day is beautified by the quiet calm of night. I truly wonder if the nature of existence stretches to infinity in both directions. We think we know so much when we actually know very little

 

Dec 3 2012

 

It’s sad sometimes to be so ordinary when society dictates we must be exceptional or we are irrelevant. I think I would rather be ordinary and be me then to be “important” and compromise. I suppose I am turning into the prototypical “crotchety old man” so if I write something you disagree with…just feel free to express yourself. I think no matter if you say black. some, people will say white…just cause. I don’t know if it’s the nature of our society…or the nature of this medium. Believe it or not, I do love all humanity as fellow journeyers on a small common ship called Earth…some more than others mind you, but. with empathy if not always with understanding for ALL.

 

 

Dec 3 2012

 

Inside each of us there are two people. There is the “public” us, the us we show to everyone around us…the things we want people to see, the things we think people want to see, the things we think will get us ahead, the things that will make us accepted. Then there is the “private” us, the us who keeps things secret, which reflects who we really are, the us we share with nobody. The things which perhaps others around us could never accept, or would accept with malice. We all have two, no matter what we may think. I believe the more of the private “us” we can share, the more spiritually and mentally healthy we will be. It’s hard though, and I believe for many it can never be totally and completely done.

 

 

 

 

Dec 31 2012

 

The universe is a place of opposition. Because there is light we must have darkness. Because there is love there must be hate. For every good thing there is an opposing bad thing. It is the immutable law of existence and can’t be changed…only mitigated. Fight on the right side people..

 

Dec 18 2012

 

 

Every time I scroll through now I see another photo of one of the poor little children who were so senselessly murdered. It doesn’t get any easier not to cry, not to care. I can’t imagine those parents, those families what they are being forced to endure through no fault of their own. No words exist which could ever fully comfort them. No amount of money or worldly goods will bring back their lost joy. Don’t we owe it to them to at least try…at the very least try as a country to do better? To be better? It is time for us as a country to quit pointing fingers…but instead to join hands and dream some solutions into reality. , so that as we continue to look at the photos of those babies over the coming years we don’t get a whispered question from them….”why haven’t you done something yet?” Is the blood if children not enough to move us to act? If it’s not…then perhaps we really are beyond help.

 

Dec 3 2012

 

 

Inside each of us there are two people. There is the “public” us, the us we show to everyone around us…the things we want people to see, the things we think people want to see, the things we think will get us ahead, the things that will make us accepted. Then there is the “private” us, the us who keeps things secret, which reflects who we really are, the us we share with nobody. The things which perhaps others around us could never accept, or would accept with malice. We all have two, no matter what we may think. I believe the more of the private “us” we can share, the more spiritually and mentally healthy we will be. It’s hard though, and I believe for many it can never be totally and completely done.

 

It’s sad sometimes to be so ordinary when society dictates we must be exceptional or we are irrelevant. I think I would rather be ordinary and be me then to be “important” and compromise. I suppose I am turning into the prototypical “crotchety old man” so if I write something you disagree with…just feel free to express yourself. I think no matter if you say black. some people will say white…just cause. I don’t know if it’s the nature of our society..or the nature of this medium. Believe it or not, I do love all humanity as fellow journeyers on a small common ship called Earth…some more than others mind you, but. with empathy if not always with understanding for ALL.

 

November 27 2012

 

spent some time earlier looking at some things under high magnification. What appears ordinary when viewed with the naked eye is extraordinary under magnification. I went to take my dogs out and the stars were coming out and looked gorgeous. What is obscured by the light of day is beautified by the quiet calm of night. I truly wonder if the nature of existence stretches to infinity in both directions. We think we know so much when we actually know very little.

 

November 20 2012

 

Back when I was in fifth grade…I remember Mrs. Ponder was my teacher. I remember her as being pretty severe. I remember being in her class one day, and I sat next to my friend “Barbecue” He had a little magazine that was kind of a “girlie” thing and was looking at it. Somebody on the other side of me wanted to see it, and just as I was passing it….Mrs. Ponder walked in. I was caught red handed AND red faced. You can try to explain your way out of something like that…but as a 5th grade boy there ain’t no way. So I had to go see Ms. Ethel….that wasn’t a good year for me because I misbehaved in class a lot of other times too. Most of the time Mrs. Ponder made us write long hand on sheets of ruled notebook paper: “I will not misbehave in class” 500 times. You may think it that it’s not much…but just try it out sometime. Mind numbing and wrist rubbing monotony. Now. I have said that to say this: When it comes to FB I am going to write 500 times…”I will not comment on political posts” “I will not comment on political posts” “I will not…..heck….I don’t think I can do it. I think I am going to go hunt me up some notebook paper now….

 

November 15 2012

 

It’s going to be an Old Fashioned Christmas this year….everyone is getting a paper bag filled with penny candies, oranges, apples, peppermint candy and nuts…..I used to enjoy these when I was a kid, but I suppose that was a “lifetime” ago. I remember sitting at the foot of a Christmas tree which was just a spruce that my Grandparents had cut down, and opening a few presents…but I still loved that ol’ “brown bag” of goodies that the “Old Zion” Baptist Church used to give all the kids. Christmas seems to be so much more complicated nowadays, what with “Black Friday” and all the emphasis on shopping and gifting. I always enjoy the “kick off” being the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and watching “Miracle on 34th St.” NOT, Halloween and “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” We can’t seem to see the forest for the trees anymore… As for me, I’ll take good health this year….and oh…a brown paper bag of goodies…that’s about it.

 

November 11 2012

 

My Dad was always the consummate “veteran” After serving in the Navy from 1945-52 he developed a lot of “Navy” habits. I can remember many times of waking up in my very early grade school years to “Hit the deck, hit the deck” What is the deck, and why…do I want to hit it, I thought? It seemed rather strange back then, but now as I look back through nostalgic eyes, it was rather natural. Having only been out of the service for a few years back in those days, Dad still had the “Navy” in his blood. He just wanted me and my brother to experience some of the rigors of “boot camp” which he had gone through, so he was simply running his own “mini” version with us.

There were also those many, many “Navy” stories. The knockdown drag out fights with fellow ship mates over some trivial slight magnified by being in close quarters out on the Ocean for so long. Then there were the memories of the horrors of death and starvation in a post War Korea, and in China, with human beings literally freezing to death in the streets. The many slick trades of cigarettes for goods…like the set of painted porcelain dragon china which hung in Mom and Dad’s kitchen for so long. The earlier memories of the last days of World War II, first being a gunner’s mate on the ship’s huge guns, then moving on to the 115 degree boiler room and advancing in rank. I was regaled by all these tales more than once, and in retrospect I was enthralled by the listening. There were so many more of them, and they filled my childhood with wonder and awe at the things which went on in the big World.

Dad never lost his allegiance to his flag and country by one iota as he got old. Though he hated War, and told me that many times, he always respected the people who were serving their country. One of my favorite photos of him is of him standing there holding an American flag and looking wistfully out at the camera…perhaps thinking about those days that he fought for his country, watched some of his friends and ship mates die for their country, and came back home a changed man.

I want to thank all of you Veterans today for YOUR service. I too have always been against War, but never have I ever had anything but respect for the human beings who have to stare death and hardship directly in the eye in service to our country. Thank you, and bless you.

 

 

October 2 2012,

 

Someone passed out of memory today….
My Grandmother Stewart lived to be 100 years old, and she often told me that she would be “alive” until she passed out of memory, meaning that as long as someone who knew her remembered her…then her memory would live one and she would continue in some measure to “live.” So, therefore, somewhere someone passed out of memory today and “died” completely. The last person who remembered them passed away. They became a part of History and no longer a part of the community of life.

My Grandmother stills does live, because there are many of us living who remember her, all that she did for us…how much she loved us. How she cared for us, comforted us. She has great-grandchildren who will be alive for MANY years to come who will carry on her memory. That’s what I am trying to do with my little Grandchildren, with hope that someday, somehow, long after I am gone that I will still live in their minds and hearts, and that those memories are good, genuine and loving like those of my Grandmother are to me. And one day, when I do pass into History…it will be all good; it will be alright…it will be peace eternal.

 

September 17, 2012

 

Deep thoughts from a shallow mind…..

I got to thinking. What is fulfillment? What does it mean? How do we get it? God in Heaven it is SO TOUGH. And then, I thought some more.

If I have ever done or said a kind word to someone when they needed it, then I am fulfilled.

If I have ever given good advice to my children, whether by pure accident, as would be the case most of the time or by chance of experience then I am fulfilled.

If I have ever kissed my wife, and she was satisfied that she had married the right man, then I am fulfilled.

If I have ever sung a song that brought out an honest emotion, or written a word that sparked a thought in someone’s mind, then I am fulfilled.

If I have ever fed a hungry animal, albeit a bird, cat, dog, squirrel, or any other living thing that God has created, then I am fulfilled.

If I have ever thought a thought that was pure enough for God to appreciate, then I am fulfilled.

If I have ever cooked food for loved ones, or strangers that they enjoyed or that made them happy, then I am fulfilled.

If I ever told a joke that got an HONEST laugh, then I am fulfilled.

I have seen the Ocean on both sides of this wonderful country and walked in the sands and didn’t do it until I was 16 years old. It was so wonderful, so I am fulfilled.

I have stood besides ruins of a culture over 2500 years old, and I am fulfilled.

I have touched the skin and felt the warmth of every person who I have loved the most on this Earth, and have been fulfilled.

I have eaten my Grandmother’s suppers, and have been filled and fulfilled.

I have listened to my Grandfather play the banjo and sing.

I have found an arrowhead in a field, and thought about the people who once populated this land, and was genuinely sorry for what they had to go through, and I am fulfilled.

I have seen a Golden Eagle in flight.

I have listened to the Beatles, Elvis, Mahalia Jackson, Percy Faith, Perry Como, Rod Stewart, Johnny Mathis, The Blues Brothers, The Righteous Brothers, Ray Boltz, Bing Crosby, Sinatra, Dean Martin, Laura Fabian, Eva Cassidy, Judy Garland, Jerry Lee Lewis, Clint Black, The Everly Brothers, and on and on. God I love music so much. I will miss it one of these days.

I have watched Meteors pour from the sky at such a rate that no one could have counted them.

I have seen an eclipse of the Sun and the Moon, and have seen a Comet in the Eastern sky during the early morning.

I have caught the tears of my children and grandchildren and tasted them. I have touched them when their skin was so soft and delicate that my whiskers made little red spots.

I have played my guitar to the UTTERMOST fulfillment in my younger days, and oh what a catharsis it has been for me. Bless the person who invented it.

I have eaten wild onions and smoked rabbit tobacco. I hated them both but it was a matter of fulfillment.

I have given money to many a homeless person, and have never told a soul.

I have been in the middle of Storms of Nature and Storms of life that I did not think I would ever survive, but I did. And I have been fulfilled.

And the list could go on and on forever.

I have loved this life, and the souls of the people that our creator has chose to populate the bodies of the ones I love. I love it still every day. I want it still every day. I am afraid of it still every day.

I have witnessed things every day that I could not have imagined when I was a child.

I have seen the wonderful side of mankind first hand, but have seen his terrible wrath on film and video, and in person. But strangely that also is fulfillment still.

I know that those who cannot do the things I have named above lack something which they can never, ever find. And they will NEVER be fulfilled.

I don’t know what will happen on the day I leave this earth. But I have been fulfilled.

 

 

September 15 2012

 

I’m afraid of heights. I also don’t like flying. I don’t like big crowds and speaking in front of a group of people terrifies me. Funny how things that are simple and basic to some people make other peoples knees turn to jelly.

I don’t know where a lot of these fears came from. Some of them have just developed over the years. Some fears we have always harbored. I have always been afraid of death. I never even wanted to think about it until the last few years. It’s a subject that most of us definitely want to avoid. I think sometimes we feel like if we talk about it, it might jinx us and we will end up on the “mortar board” at some funeral home before the days out. Also, it’s a pretty depressing subject to broach. Nobody wants to be depressed, so nobody talks about it. I can’t remember the first time I thought about it, and was scared. I think it was when I was about four years old. Really, it’s true. As a little kid when I should have been thinking about playing cowboys and Indians, I was mulling over the great unknown. It’s been a bummer over the years.

Lately, I have come to the conclusion that by talking about death maybe we can make it less scary. I am not as afraid of it as I used to be. It’s not the little kid fear of going to hell and burning up in a blazing fire type fear anymore. It’s more of just an apprehension of something unknown. It’s a disappointment that I might not be around to see my loved ones complete most of their journey that they have started. It’s the conversations and contact with my family and friends that I don’t want to give up. The touches and looks of people you love, and who love you. Most of all, it turns out that it’s a selfish thing. Imagine that. I have so many selfish reasons for living that I don’t want to die and give them all up.

I don’t want to give up the beautiful sunny days like the one we had this past week. I don’t want to give up the good books that I enjoy reading every day. I don’t want to give up the glorious music I listen to every night.

But, it’s not what we want that we get is it?

There are so many theories and theological thesis about what happens to us after we die. It’s hard to pin one down and stick with it. One thing that I can assure you though is that it will be different from any of them. I don’t think that man has been given the knowledge, through any type of religion or science of what really happens. I am a Christian and believe he lived, but some people may not be the same as me. It may be that we just have peace. Peace would be nice; I’ll take that over some of what I’ve heard over the years.

I’ve seen a lot of people going through unbelievable suffering, or who no longer know who or what they are who would take peace too. There was a little old lady who was “rooming” next to my Mother at the nursing home a couple of years ago who was there one day and gone the next. She was in bad shape. She was ready for a rest, and she got it. I think if you could have broken through the wall of her senility she would have told you she was. A lot of times people outlive the desire to live, and when they do that, they are ready for peace. I am sure she wasn’t scared of it. Maybe welcomed it.

As long as we have the desire, then we should “keep on truckin’” as we used to say back in the 70’s. It’s when we lose the desire, due to things that are happening to us physically, that it becomes a hardship to keep on keeping on.

So, I guess as my perspective has changed from that little shivering four year old kid, who shouldn’t have even known what death was, to the more knowledgeable but equally unknowing 61 year old that I am now am. I still have my desire to live and hope that I keep it for a long, long time to come. I hope all of you do also. But, when we are ready for peace, I hope we find it and that it turns out to be better than we ever imagined.

 

 

August 23, 2012

 

I now have the cleanest squirrel in the State of Georgia living in the tree in my front yard. The bold little feller is a permanent resident of the Ivy encased Elm tree that stands on the West side of the house providing much needed evening shade. I water my plants regularly and refresh the water in the birdbaths every day or so, and I use a hose pipe with a “sweeper” nozzle so I can get out to the farthest reaches of my postage stamp size yard. I was over next to the fence, just fixing to quit when the “dirty” little squirrel climbed down off his limb onto the top of one of my birdhouses. Seeing that he needed a bath, I screwed the nozzle to “high” which produces the strongest stream of water possible. Pointed the hose in his direction and let go of the crimp in the hose pipe I had been holding. Now..I’ve seen squirrels make some amazing moves…they are quite acrobatic creatures, but when that stream of water hit that little bushy tailed rodent he did a double back flip with three and a half turns straight UP onto the limb above his head. It took him two more seconds to get back up to his home base…where he sat chattering and shaking like a wet dog. Well..now he’s clean and I ain’t seen him trying to rob the poor finches today…..

 

July 26 2012

 

The last time I ever saw and spoke with my Grandfather in 1992, he was 98 years old. His mind was ravaged by Dementia and his kidneys were failing. Yet, all he could talk about that day were his bees. He wasn’t making much sense about anything else, but for some reason that day he had the bees on his mind. You see, he had been a beekeeper almost all of his life, and he was worried about them. Very worried.

As far back as I can remember there were always bee hives surrounding his old two storied clapboard house. They were not out in some distant field somewhere. They were within feet of the front porch, resting on large flat rocks that Grandpa had brought down behind a mule from near the top of “Johnny” Mountain which loomed tall just across Uncle Lark’s corn field straight out in front of the home place.

They were neat little white painted wooden boxes, with another one of the flat rocks on top. Simplicity in design beyond today’s comprehension, but workable nonetheless. I used to be mesmerized as a child watching these tireless workers fly in and out, and in and out of the little hole cut in the bottom of the wooden box, which served as their one entrance and exit from the hive. I could watch them for hours on end and never tire of the wonderment of their movements and the soliloquy of their buzzing symphony.

They would zip around my head as I sat on the front porch swing, and I once made the mistake of swatting one of them when he got too close. Not only did I get a sting from the bee, but a lecture from Grandpa. “They won’t hurt you, if you don’t hurt them first” he said. “They’re out helpers, and you gotta let ‘em be” I had to take this advice literally, coming from a man who more often than not would rob a hive of bees wearing no extra clothing besides a heavy pair of leather gloves. He talked to them as he took out the honey, telling them he was leaving enough for them to survive the winter. Talked and hummed all the while.

But late that afternoon in 1992 he was worried about them.

“Will you take care of the bees this year?” he asked “I just don’t think I will be up to it”

“And mind you, don’t swat none of them, we need them every one”

“Sure Grandpa” I answered. “I’ll take care of them”

Now we are looking at the very real prospect that something is very wrong with our Honey bees. The populations are disappearing, and with them the possibility of apple and peach trees that don’t get pollinated, corn fields and soy bean crops that may be lost, perennials that may not bloom again. How important these creatures, who we hardly ever notice, unless they sting us, really are to our society. If they were all to disappear today, would humanity survive? We may find out unless the energies of our government and scientist hone in on what it is exactly that is making them disappear.

I remember nothing so well as the sweet taste of the fresh harvested honeycomb, and how the honey would drip from the edges of my mouth when I bit into it. I would hate for my grandchildren and their grandchildren to never have that chance. I personally feel like I have let my Grandpa down because when I spoke with him that day in 1992, I thought it was just the ramblings of an errant mind, and I didn’t think anymore about it.

But Grandpa knew how important these insects were. “They’re our helpers, we need them everyone” he had said.

We certainly do, and all of us had better realize it before it’s too late.

 

 

July 4 2012,

 

 

Many things happen…bad things happen to good people and vice-versa. Sickness strikes, accidents happen, children die. You hear..it’s part of God’s plan. I think God’s plan is this: He gave man free will and the things which happen in this world, in our lives and the lives of others is a direct consequence of the free will God has given us. Does God know what is going to happen to people? I think perhaps God chooses NOT to know…because if he did know and took steps to intervene, then it would not be free will. I know this may be a paradox of a sort, but consider that God DOES choose to forget our sins when he forgives them. Not just forgives…but FORGETS sin which is forgiven. I don’t think then, that it is stretching the belief too far to suppose that in giving human beings free will God has chosen (for the most part) NOT to know what is going to happen in our lives and the consequences which may befall others due to OUR choices. Consider the little 8 and 13 year old boys who were just killed recently by a drunken boat driver. Would God have chosen to let those boys die? I think it was a consequence of the free will of the drunken driver which caused the outcome of the untimely death of these two children. I believe God knows when he will END the days of our free will. Until then I think God’s plan is to give us free choice to do either bad…or hopefully good.

 

April 13 2014,

 

All the Master’s I have won.

Sitting here watching the Masters, I like to remember back to my High School years and all of the times which I won that tournament. It was many times, as I remember….
I switched from baseball to golf after I had a knee injury while playing baseball. Old Doc Clemens wanted me to walk…even while I still had a cast on my injured left knee. My Dad liked golf, so he bought me a set of “Kroyden” golf clubs from one of the supervisors he knew at the mill. It was minus a 3 iron…which had gotten wrapped around a tree. Thinking back, I guess that’s why he got them so cheaply. The guy was giving up the sport. I still have the nine iron from that set. I used it for years and years around the greens. I chipped a lot of balls in the hole with that club. I won the Masters a couple of times with it.
I had a hole in one on number four at the Trion golf course once. It was, however, a two. I was playing with old friend of mine Steve Hammonds. I lined up that five iron and took a mighty first swing…..and…whiffed the ball. Totally missed it. I tried to play it off as a practice swing, but Hammond wouldn’t let me. I changed clubs to a four iron and swung a little more gently and the ball took one hop and bounced right into the hole. “Hole in one” I yelled. “No, said Steve…it’s a two” Ah well, at least it was a birdie. The only hole in one in all my years of playing and it would have to be a two!
Being a solitary soul, I played many rounds alone. Those were the “majors” for me. I can’t tell you all the amazing shots which I made, all of the commentary from the announcers. (I didn’t know who they were back then…but they later turned into the voices of Pat Summerall and Ken Venturi) I made up all the acceptance speeches, held all of the “loving” cups with my name engraved into them. I won the “grand slam” many times over.
The golf course was my home away from home. I worked at the “pro shop” for a couple of years and learned a lot of neat new words from all of the older golfers, as the shop was just off of the first tee at Trion…with the river running right next to the fairway on the right. My friend Michael Brown and I dove into that muddy mess after a lot of tournaments and felt in the “gunk” with our hands, often coming up with dozens of balls which had found their way into the “wet” I mowed around the roughs and sloughs. (Lamar would NEVER trust me to mow the fairways or the greens) I caddied for the guys from Ware Shoals S.C., when they came down for their yearly match with the Trion supervisors. They paid better, especially as a caddy AND a player, I knew the course well.
My best tournament I ever played (with the exceptions of those imaginary ones) was in my senior year at Trion High. There was a fall tournament…a “Jaycees” tournament for the youth of the community. It was divided by age and I was in the “fourteen and over” group. I played excellent and consistent during this 27 hole day long affair. I had three 37’s for 111. Three over par. Some of the best golf I have ever played. The air was crisp and leaves were already starting to turn. The sun was gorgeous and temperature just loomed in the 70’s. The golf course was in immaculate condition. As I walked up onto the old clubhouse steps after my last round I just knew that I was going to finally get that trophy I wanted do badly. It would make up for losing the Region tournament low medalist by hitting my ball inside a 55 gallon trash can. I knew I could beat all the kids around town with my score. I hadn’t counted on an outsider from Savannah coming up and playing and shooting a final round 33 to post a 108 and win our age group. His Daddy Tommy had been pro at the Trion golf course some years back. Kid’s name was Andy Bean. He did go on to win a lot of money on the PGA tour…but that wasn’t any consolation to me at the time.
I haven’t played a round of golf since about 2004 or 2005. I think about playing from time to time but just don’t get out there and do it. Perhaps I’ll go play a round by myself someday soon just to get back into the “swing” of it. I can hear Pat Summerall’s voice now….”and Bowers chips the ball into the hole on the 18th, winning the 1975 Masters” Ahh the memories..both real and imagined.

 

June 30, 2012

AMERICA: WHAT WENT WRONG?

Once upon a time, the measures served a purpose. Their usefulness today, in assessing the current and future state of Americans at work in a global economy, operating without restraints, is doubtful.

For the middle class, there are more relevant measures. For example: What is the rate at which new jobs that pay middle-class wages-upwards of $20,000 a year-are being created? What is the rate at which such jobs are being eliminated?

How much of your weekly paycheck is being transferred to wealthy investors in the form of interest payments on the national debt? What percentage of your paycheck do you have left over after deductions for Social Security and federal, state, and local taxes? How does that percentage compare with, say, the percentage retained by persons earning more than $100,000 a year? What is the rate of job loss attributable to unrestrained imports?

How much of your paycheck is going for health-care costs? What is the percentage of the work force that will receive a guaranteed annual pension?

In the pages that follow, you will find the answers, or at least partial answers, to these and many other questions. But mostly you will find a disturbing picture of American economic life at the close of the twentieth century.

You might think of what is happening in the economy-and thereby to you and your family-in terms of a professional hockey game, a sport renowned for its physical violence. Imagine how the game would be played if the old rules were repealed, if the referees were removed.

That, in essence, is what is happening to the American economy. Someone changed the rules. And there is no referee. Which means there is no one looking after the interests of the middle class.

They are the forgotten Americans.

 

June 27, 2012

 

Well…when at first you don’t succeed getting something posted try two more times….but it’s worth trying again:

I noticed that Mrs. Nellie McWhorter has died. Besides my Mom and Dad she is the person in Trion of whom I have the longest memories. I remember her from when we lived up on sixth street back in the early 1950’s. She was always so nice to the little crazy boy next door. She let me hunt lightning bugs in her back yard, and even gave me a jar to put them in. She told me “Make sure and let them out in the morning, so they don’t die” I had fun with those little bugs that night. Bet I had a hundred of them in that jar! She also would let me play in their driveway with my little old “tootsie” toy cars. The neighbors ALWAYS had a better driveway to play in! She never had a cross word that I can remember. I know that her husband passed away fairly early and left her a widow. I remember seeing her out and about back in the 1970’s after we moved back to Trion, and was surprised she know my name…Back 10 or more years ago she started driving her little blue Ford sedan down to Trade Day and selling knick knacks and fried pies to make a little money to make it through the month on. A lot of elderly people did and are doing that. I got to renew my friendship with her, because I loved the pies and I hate I didn’t know who to ask what had happened to her. I have been missing her, and now know we will continue to miss her. It happens quite often with that group of older folks, one of whom I am fast becoming, who come down to set up and make a few little dollars. RIP Mrs. Nellie…you will be missed.

 

June 22 2012

 

Misunderstanding is almost always caused by a lack of information.Deep thoughts from a shallow mind…

 

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!

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THE SOCIAL MEDIA JOURNALS

Following is Part #1 of the Social Media Journals by Larry Bowers.  Unedited, and uncorrected in some cases.  It’s very long, so read when you have time and at your peril!

 

Dec 2011

 

The New Year is creeping every closer. Just a few more days until Sunday and it will be 2012. When I was a kid in the 1950’s, I often thought about the year 2000 and beyond. I thought it would be a magical time where most problems of health and poverty would be solved and I thought that surely by then the world would find a way to be at peace. I thought people would travel around in “sky cars” sort of like the Jetsons and that there would be devices to take care of human needs. I think maybe if we, i.e. the human race, had spent as much money on the problems of health and poverty, and on finding ways of helping our fellow man instead of on wars, weapons of wars and ways to destroy each other we might have seen that idealistic world I dreamed off as a child. Where did we go wrong? Surely I thought, after two huge wars that killed so many people in the middle of the century we would LEARN something……I want to go back sometimes to those days in the past and see if it was something I did, or didn’t do, that might have helped. Yes…the New Year is creeping every closer this week and there is still a chance for all of those good things to happen. Wonder if there’s a chance they will?

 

Christmas 2011

 

The biggest and best gift that we are given besides the gift we celebrate today is our lives. We need to be so thankful for this wonderful chance we have been given to live on this earth, to love and to experience being human beings. We don’t need to waste time with hate. Hating others for what they are or what they do. We have only so much time here to LOVE one another. Let’s try doing more loving and less hating and I think God will be happier with us.

 

Christmas Eve 2011

 

Many of us measure our lives by the number of Christmas’s we live through. More so, than even our birthdays. This is my 62nd Christmas, my first one occurring when I was 3 months old. I rejoice this year even more than ever to be here and celebrate the birth of Jesus on the morrow. May all of my friends and family have a fine day. May all of humanity realize that we live to walk in the shadow of Christ, who loved all mankind, the same, and who died for all of mankind to have a chance to be with him. Merry Christmas

 

Dec 19 2011

 

Wangdoodles and Vermicious Knids

For some reason today I thought about the line from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory where Gene Wilder as Willie Wonka tells his group of guests in his factory about the Oompa Loompas and their country and how they came to his factory: “Oh, well, then you know all about it and what a terrible country it is. Nothing but desolate wastes and fierce beasts. And the poor little Oompa Loompas were so small and helpless, they would get gobbled up right and left. A Wangdoodle would eat ten of them for breakfast and think nothing of it. And so, I said, “Come and live with me in peace and safety, away from all the Wangdoodles, and Hornswogglers, and Snozzwangers, and rotten, Vermicious Knids.”

I sometimes wish that a place like the Chocolate Factory existed, and that those of us who wanted to, could go there. “Well there’s Heaven” some people will say: “It’s a lot better than a Chocolate Factory” Well I’m not ready to go there quite yet. As the country song says: “Everybody Wants to go to Heaven, but Nobody Wants to Die” That’s how I feel about it. (ok, that’s my limit for clichés and quotes for the day!)

The kind of place I am thinking about doesn’t exist anymore, if it ever did. As the days grow more and more dangerous during this age and in this time, there is very little a person can do to get away from the world that wants to harm them, unless you want to move to one of the islands that the “Survivor” cast have abandoned, and start using their stuff and living like them.

A lot of people have tried to create their own “safe haven” Jim Jones, and his followers. David Koresh tried. A lot of people try to start their own Valhalla, and somehow it always seems to fail. I wonder why? Is humanity and human nature so geared to be combative and hateful to other humans who don’t “fit in” that no matter what we do here on this earth, we are doomed to fail when it comes to loving and protecting those who are different? You would like to think that wasn’t so, but tell me a time and a place where there has ever been a “Chocolate Factory” for the Oompa Loompas?

Sadly, I can’t think of any. I know that all religions promise us a place like that, of one kind or another. Heaven, Nirvana, Paradise, you name it. We have been promised the reward of these places from them all. But that’s ONLY due to us after we die. I sometimes think long and hard about the theory which some preachers and philosophers espouse, that people are living their “hell” while they are here on earth.

Some people do I think,… of their own accord.

I know there are many, many joyful things that we have while we are here. Most of the time, we don’t really see them or appreciate them while we are experiencing them, and it’s only through the glasses of “nostalgia” and memory that we look back and think about what we should have done, or might have done to make things better, or to enjoy things more. That’s probably why I reach back into the past so much through my writing.

Maybe I didn’t get it right the first time! Damn I sometimes with that I had another chance!

But I am growing more content with the things I have actually done as I get older.  There’s no use in beating yourself up, because I believe everything happens for a reason and that the things which DO happen are what is supposed to have happened.  Does that make sense?

But sometimes when really bad and horrific things happen to good people you HAVE to wonder why. Senseless murders, children molested, wars and killings of innocents. Good people having to suffer with horrible, painful diseases. Where was THEIR safe haven? Life just never ceases to puzzle me when it comes to things like that. Why do these things happen? What can the purpose of this possibly be?

I guess it’s all in what you seek while you are here. I think none of us, from the Pope to the Dali Llama really knows, with absolute certainty what is waiting for us.

I kind of hope I open my eyes and I am walking into this big Chocolate Factory where everything is made of candy and……there are little purple guys walking around with smiles on their faces!

Peace and Joy!

 

 

Dec 18 2011

 

A year ago today I was laying in a hospital bed, after having gone in on the 17th with chest pains. I found out last 18th that I had a heart attack and then subsequently went “up the chain” to a quadruple bypass on Teddy’s birthday, December 21st. So far this year, although I am still not totally well, I praised God that I am even here and hopefully this year will celebrate a “normal” Christmas…not lying in the hospital wondering if I was going to even live. It was not my time, God was not through with me yet and I pray that he will not be for many years to come. This is a little early but….MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone, especially my wonderful family and all the friends who have prayed for my recovery during this past, very difficult year.

 

Dec 11 2011

 

Why are people getting married less now?

They are afraid of commitment, which means they would have to be faithful and true to one person. They are afraid of having to hold on to one person through hard times…because it’s not always goodness and light. They are afraid of having to uphold vows, and promises which they make when they GET married.

Also, the government handouts are easier to get if you are single. Get married and you might lose your food stamps, or your welfare. Some people don’t want to tamper with that. They have learned how to play the system and don’t want to mess it up. Get married and you have to pay more taxes. So a lot of them just live together. We should have programs for people who really need it, but people aren’t always honest.

Older folks whose spouses have died don’t won’t to give up precious money and benefits to get married again. They shouldn’t have to. So a lot of them just live together.

Rich people and celebrities don’t won’t to get married, cause it would complicate who gets what when they get divorced. Plus it’s expensive to have a lawyer draw up those pre-nups, so a lot of them just live together.

Our society seems to stack the deck AGAINST marriage, and then they wonder why marriage is down??

Now this rant does NOT apply to everyone in any of the above categories. Also, it must be kept in mind that this is just MY opinion and others may agree or disagree as they please.

 

 

I’m too far in the soup now to control the temperature….indeed I think I have become one of the ingredients.

 

I revel in life. I revel in this time that I have been given as a living, breathing being, able to enjoy all of the temporal things that are here. I took a deep smell of a beautiful baby’s hair today and touched their soft skin. I tasted my food with pleasure. I feel the crispness of the cold winter air and exhale, able to see the living breath that was just inside my lungs. I appreciate this life, I am grateful for this life. I revel in it.

 

Dec 6 2011

 

Every year without fail it comes. It’s that time of year again when my nerves become as jangled as old St. Nick’s jingle bells.

I can’t help it. I’ve tried, but to no avail. Every December 25th, right after all the wrapping paper has been torn off of all the presents (usually a TON of them…really…) I start saying to myself: “next year, I am not putting myself through the strain of trying to get so much…to do so much” but, when next year rolls around…..this year now, I start getting that feeling down in my gut that I am just not going to have enough dough, ray, mi to get what I feel like I need to get. Sometimes it gets to the point where it downright depresses me.

I know when I was a kid, a lot of my best memories of Christmas were, or course at my Grandparent’s home. But, I guarantee you right now that they were a site simpler Christmases than now. One year that I remember really vividly was back in the mid 60’s I guess. We didn’t usually go up there until a few days before Christmas day. And guess what? Grandma didn’t have her Christmas stuff already out! That’s right; she didn’t get it out the day after Halloween like some of us do now. She didn’t have too much stuff anyway. One medium size cardboard box and that was it.

For some unknown reason that year, I went out with Grandma to cut a tree. Grandma was appointed to all that kind of stuff because of Grandpa’s arthritis in his knees. I can’t remember when he didn’t have it. Besides, he was the type who thought if Grandma needed a tree, then SHE should be the one to get it. We walked for a good piece, up and down some rolling hills. Finally, Grandma spotted a little pine tree. It was about 4 feet tall, and had pretty, fully needled limbs. We took the saw and cut it down, and I drug it back to the house. Out came the cardboard box, and my brother and I, and Grandma put on the decorations. Everyone else just sort of hung back and watched. It was great fun! We had to be oh so careful with those glass ornaments, and even had to replace one or two of those big old bulbs on the one strand of red lights that she owned.

When we were through, and plugged in the lights, that little pine became transformed into a veritable “Times Square” beauty. I don’t think it would have won any contests of ANY kind. But for us, it was good. Very good.

My brother and I usually only had two or three presents each at Christmas. There was one “main” present, which usually never exceeded a twenty dollar price tag. Then there were a couple of smaller ones. Grandpa always delivered, with a stocking full of fruit. Oranges, apples, sliced orange candy, peppermint sticks (the soft ones) and all types of assorted nuts. I really looked forward to that stocking! Then, when we visited O’ Zion Baptist Church for their Christmas program, we ended up getting that wonderful brown paper bag full of the same kinds of goodies. The sliced orange candy was ALWAYS my favorite!

I don’t know when things changed, but somewhere along the line they certainly did. The stores all have gotten larger. Then of course we have had the development of Wal-Mart, the king of merchandising. With them around to push the small Mom and Pop businesses into bankruptcy, the way that Christmas has been perceived and promoted has changed tremendously. Every year it’s pushed up by a day or two. It used to be that it was right after Thanksgiving before you saw anything “Christmas” come out. Then, they moved it up a couple of weeks. They have kept moving and moving it until now the Trick or Treaters are not off of the streets and into their beds, before the Christmas stuff comes out.

It’s not the same stuff either. I looked and looked the other day to try and find something that wasn’t made in China. I finally did. It was made in Viet Nam. I went through a JC Penney store the other day and looked at clothing and found made in Egypt, Viet Nam, Peru, Nicaragua, Singapore, South Africa, etc. You name it. The only thing I found in the whole store in 30 minutes of looking that was made in the U.S., was good old “Cannon” towels.

Well, back where I started. The feeling in the gut. It’s a little worse than usual this year. My situation is a little tenuous, and money is going to be really short. This MAY just be the year when I am forced to do what I think about every year and cut back. Besides, I am not really sure that I want to make China’s economy any better than it already is…or Viet Nam’s for that matter.

Maybe I should go out in the woods and cut down a little old pine tree, just for old time’s sake. (If the pulp wood guys haven’t gotten them all!)

 

November 29 2011

 

I will have to say one thing for sure, Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass were two men who were WAY ahead of their time in terms of rejecting the ideas of discriminating against people due to them being “different” in some way. Never heard of them? I’m sure that most of us watch at LEAST one of their works if not more this time of the year. As a matter of fact, I just finished watching “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” again yesterday with the babies. Believe me, if you watch it closely with your eyes wide open to what is going on, you will see a tenderly made cartoon which teaches one of life’s greatest lessons. Rudolph himself, was of course, “different” with his Red Nose so shiny and bright; but there was also Hermie the Elf who wanted to be a dentist and not a toy maker, and all the Toys on the Island of Misfit Toys with their “differences” from regular toys. All the reindeers teased Rudolph about his nose and even the great man Santa discriminated against him due to him being born with a physical difference. In the end, a lesson was learned when Rudolph saved the day for the very many who had previously rejected him. A lot of other Rankin and Bass cartoons also contain different lessons. “Santa Claus is coming to Town” with it’s “Burgermeister” whose dictator like rules kept children from having toys and kept their parents “under the thumb” of a repressive government. Rudolph came out in 1964, and the other cartoons not long after. I marvel at these lessons that I overlooked, or didn’t want to pay attention to, until these past few years when more and more people are coming down on others for being “different” in some manner or the other.

 

Thanksgiving 2011

 

Thanksgiving….my favorite holiday of the year. Even more so than Christmas. On Thanksgiving all of the family is here and the extent of the stress is whether to have another spoonful of dressing or some more ham. I put more stress on myself about Christmas every year, by worrying about what to give to whom and is it enough and yada yada. This year, with things as they are, Christmas will be a little more “homey” But, I have finally decided that it’s going to be ok. I would be fine if the only thing I get for Christmas is an “I love you” from my family. I could NOT have made it this past year without them, especially my wife. You don’t know about love until you have to have someone wait on you hand and foot because you can’t wait on yourself. You don’t know about feelings until one of your children or grandchildren walking through the door to see you lifts your heart to the heavens. This year I am thankful just to BE here…just to be able to be around and love the best family any man could have. So, come on Thanksgiving…and pass the dressing please!

 

Nov 13 2011

 

I guess there comes a time in life when you realize you are becoming irrelevant. I think at some point during the space between my 60th year and my 61st year it has begun to happen to me. I dream almost every night of working…some job, and yet I don’t know whether I could physically do one if I could get one. That’s a feeling of inadequacy and uselessness I haven’t felt for 40 years. Things I used to look forward to have receded somewhat into the distance. Enjoyment of past activities are slightly beyond reach, just at my fingertips. I really think when they split you open and your body is operated by a machine for about an hour…something goes out of you. I talked with a couple of guys today who had the same thing done, and they both feel the same way about it. Did I die, and lose part of my soul….part of my will? Sometimes it feels like it. A lot of days I come off as being in a fog, or a funk. Who likes that? I see a lot of guys at my age still able to run marathons and play sports. Well, since I couldn’t run a marathon even before last year, I guess THAT’S irrelevant too. But. I could do a lot of things then which I can’t do now. I’m not old though. I’m not losing my mind, and I’m going to make sure that THIS year between my 61st year and 62nd year I prove that to myself. I am not quite ready for my elegy yet.

 

Nov 2 2011

 

Philosophically, I believe that many things in the world and in our universe are mysteriously balanced. For instance, I really believe that if one could count all the grains of sand on all the beaches in the world, then they would know the number of stars in the sky. I just think that’s how things work. Practically, however; I would wonder why anyone would want to do that, when it would be so much easier to count the number of people who are around you who need your love and care. I feel like a lot of times the things we humans pursue in quest of answers are very unimportant in the pursuit of happiness.

 

October 2011

 

Why is it that although we know “scientifically” that human thought and emotion comes from the brain, we FEEL as though the emotions and thoughts we have for others come from the HEART?

 

I believe that Love comes from the heart.

 

When someone hurts you, your heart is broken. When you feel grief, does your head hurt or do you feel the tightness and pressure well up from inside of your chest? When you pick up a baby, so sweet and innocent….do you hug them to your head?

I’ve looked at explanations of how it’s all a “chemical reaction” that takes place in our brain.

But I wonder how scientists know where our soul really resides within us? I think it resides in our heart.  I can just feel it deep down in my chest.

 

October 11 2011…when memes started to take over….

 

Where are all the “cartooney” looking posts coming from now? Is this something new from face book…you know all the posts with “sayings” from great minds and great thinkers? It sorta makes face book look like an ad from CVS. Also, what’s with the quiz about staying friends with people? I like all the people I have on my friends list and if I didn’t, I guess I would just quietly “unfriend” them. Gosh knows my life has been SO full of having to fill out forms and answering questions about this and that for people I don’t even know calling me on the phone and you name it for the past year…I really don’t want to fill out a quiz to stay friends. I’m not mad at nobody and I hope nobody’s mad at me.

 

Sept 29 2011

 

I would appear to me that anyone who claims to be a “prophet” had either REALLY BE a prophet or else they are a FALSE prophet. I know that some of the people who are claiming they KNOW about this and about that are very popular people sometimes. A person doesn’t’ have to claim to be a “prophet” to act prophetic. I worry. If you want to be Biblical you could quote the Bible…and I usually refrain from this because it is done SO often, but in this case I think it’s appropriate: “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.” Luke 6:26 this country is fast becoming a country of “false prophets” whether they be religious, political, literary, or philosophical. We have so many choices of things to believe, and it’s all laid out for us on a platter by our ever increasingly intrusive and instantaneous media. Am I being paranoid? I am reading too much into what is happening or what people are saying? I really firmly believe that the proliferation of the instant media and instant communication in this world, which started with the Television and has continued through the PC, and now the “power” phones which we all carry have enabled the possibility of control over large groups of individuals by people who are best unscrupulous and at worst evil to the core. You look at the population of the world, you look at our depletion of the natural environment, you look at the fact that groups of men never change in their intent to kill and conquer those weaker than them, and you wonder how long this can continue. The threat to us as individuals has grown exponentially since World War II. I can remember even in the early 50’s when my Great Uncles and my Grandfather could live practically money free by what they grew and raised themselves. My Grandfather might have spent 50 dollars a month on things he didn’t grow or raise himself. Try that now. I am not sure it can still be done. I am not sure that an individual can ever be anonymous or near anonymous anymore. We are, all of us, too tied into the “system” due to our use of things technical and information “vampiring” Even this program which I am using, and this computer on which I am typing and on the phone I just used today and in all the information I have dissembled to other entities and organizations over the past 10 to 15 years doom me to never being able to avoid the long reach of “big brother” anymore. As I say, I worry. I probably have rambled also. Just food for thought for anyone who has a few minutes to read and digest it. (even if you disagree)

 

 

If you hurt, I hurt with you. If you travel afar I will follow. If there is nothing to eat, I will be hungry with you…there is nothing I would not do for you, only just ask me…and I will do it if it is in my power.

 

September 9 2011

 

 

Through all the living of my life some wonderful things and people have remained constant and supportive. My wife, my family, my faith, my friends. There are so many exterior influences which want to take you down and reduce you to questioning whether or not you are worthy to even be alive. Don’t listen to them. They can either be overcome or ignored. They do not count in the long run. I can live without many things but as long as I have love I can live.

 

September 5 2011

 

I got out an old pocket watch the other day while I was selling stuff at Trade Day and I got to thinking about things while I was winding up that old watch.

 

I had watched a show a few days ago on Youtube, taking a break from watching “The British Baking Show”,  about the science of quantum physics.  It made me think that although we humans think we are REALLY smart, there are SO many things we have yet to discover….

 

I feel like we have only seen the tip of the iceberg, and know nothing about what lies beneath, under the cover of the ocean.

 

It’s all seems so complicated…this Universe, but then…just think, like I thought Tuesday at Trade day, how complicated some of the pocket watches that the Swiss used to make were. SO many moving parts, and yet…they kept time better than anything ever made. Also, when those wonderfully smart watchmakers’s got through with them, they knew all the new owner was going to have to do was “wind” the watch. They knew the quality of what they had made.  They knew the time and precision and pride they had put into the making of those watches.

 

Now then, if HUMANS can make something that complicated, and make it work so well, just think what the creator of all things can do!  What seems SO complicated to us in the existence of our Universe is a “pocket watch” to God.

 

We are only starting to realize his wonders.

 

August 29 2011

 

It’s pretty pitiful when your idea of giving to the homeless is throwing empty aluminum soda cans out the window….

 

 

August 28 2011

 

One of my favorite movies of all times is “Forrest Gump” Ok, I know…I know it’s hokey, and clichéd but it’s still one of my favorites!

One of the things that Forrest does, that I find myself wanting to do more and more often of late, is to just take off and run, and run, and keep running. If I COULD run, (everyone who knows me personally knows what a ludicrous idea that is) I would do it just like Forrest did, going from coast to coast and just looking at the sights and thinking. He was thinking mostly about Jenny, which he certainly did a LOT in the movie. As for me personally, I am to the point where I just want to break out and RUN AWAY now, as fast as I can from things! It just seems like everything seems to pile up at one time, and as it keeps piling I feel like if I don’t get out of the way I am going to get crushed.

But, I think we all get that way at times. When “life” things overcome us, and we start to mull over our problems endlessly, thinking that there is NO solution out there for the things that are weighing us down. I guess I forget, as we all do, that everyone has their limit, their point up to where they can take things, and once it gets past that point you just want to RUN!

Forrest just felt like going for a little run, and he did it for two years. At this point, it might take me more time than that to figure out where I went wrong in life and how to straighten things out. (If that’s possible) At my age, there’s not a whole lot of “straightening out” time left in which to unspoil the pot.

Some people will say that prayer works. I have been praying every night and so far God has either not chosen to answer me, or the answer isn’t coming yet. Could be I have got to get through this “phase” in my life by myself. It’s a tough one though. I guess that growing up is never easy though.

Yes, that’s right, I said growing up. No matter what age you are, you still are not too old to “grow up” a little. Admitting you have been wrong about some things is a good start. A lot of people could benefit from that, and then apologizing for what they have done wrong. Apologizing really seems to be a sticking point for some people, especially politicians! I personally have had a problem with it sometimes. But not now. I am going around and telling people who I don’t even know how sorry I am!

First I guess I really just need to analyze what it is I want. I think we all need to do that. Maybe not even what we WANT but what we actually NEED. Most of the time those are two WILDLY diverse things. I want to have enough money to pay my bills, and give my wife some security, enough time to enjoy my children and grandchildren, and enough wisdom to understand that almost every other human being on earth wants the same things. Perhaps if I look around at what’s going on most other places on this little globe, I will realize that I don’t have it too awful bad.

 

Well, then I am going back to the bedroom now and see if I can find my Tennis shoes. I don’t know if I can run, but if it’s warm enough outside I think I might just take a little walk. Run Forrest Run!

 

Aug 2011

 

In life there are VERY few people you can really trust. I’d say most of us could count them on our fingers.

 

Quickly, quickly before your “someday I wills” turn into “I wish I hads”

 

Turning over a new leaf and hope the other side looks fresh…

 

Anyone who believes in a cause but does not act, risks being held as a hypocrite.

 

August 5 2011

 

 

I was watching the clouds roll by overhead today, and a sense of unreality hit me. Things just don’t “seem” the same to me now as they did when I was a child. As I remember the clouds and sky seemed so much “newer”, “cleaner” different somehow. Everything else felt the same. Was it because I was looking at thing through the eyes of child, and now somehow over the years I have become “jaded” to the beauty of the earth. Somehow I have let cynicism creep in and darken thing. Age has occluded and taken away my child’s view of life. What a loss…what a shame.

 

To know great sorrow one has to have known great love

 

July 31 2011

 

I saw some trailers from the new move Transcendence by Johnny Depp and thought back to this post I did in 2011.  I thought it kind of related to the subject of artificial intelligence.  I want to go to see this movie, kind of afraid to do it though.  I have posted many times in the past concerning this subject, one in which I postulated that the day that computers become “self aware” will be a bad day for humanity! Hey sometimes you wonder if screenwriters browse FB for ideas….lol…

 

 

 

My Daddy once told me that unless a man had something useful to say, he should keep his mouth shut. As most of you realize if you know me, or have read my writing it’s obvious that I should keep my mouth shut most of the time. I just can’t help it though, useful or not I have to say what I think. Sometimes I am down….sometimes up (I wonder if I’m bi-polar? Naw…I think I like the North Pole best)

 

What I am opening my mouth (or keyboard literally) to talk about today is hope. That’s right, hope. I have to have it. It has to be there, like a piece of driftwood in the vast ocean when you are drowning. Something to grab hold of and stay afloat. My hope is for the future. A future in which I will be missing, but my children and grandchildren and whatever descendants that I may be blessed with (who will only know I existed by looking at photos of the “funny looking man“) will know.

 

 

 

Right now, the future looks kind of bleak, and that is why I have to have hope. I don’t think there is any way that the members of my generation, the baby boomers, can fix the mess that we are in now. It’s not just one mess, but MANY different messes going on simultaneously which make things so complex. But I really think things are going to change in the future…have to change for humanity to survive. Some of the things I think may happen:

 

There are the changing demographics of the entire world. People of different races and cultures are traveling far and wide in this day and age and settling in places their ancestors would never have imagined. As they do this, they become familiar with each other and one thing leads to another and you have relationships being built between these members of different races and cultures. Some still try to stick with their own cultures, but inevitably I believe will fail. The children of the future will all probably look like Tiger Woods and Mariah Carey. I think at some point there won’t be any black, yellow, red and white anymore. There will be one color and one international culture at some point. I don’t know how far in the future that this may occur, and I don’t know if mankind can keep from destroying each other first with nuclear weapons but if they can then that’s one thing I think will happen. It will be a huge challenge for our descendants who are at the “transitional” stage. (Or maybe that’s where we ARE now?) It could well be that the future inhabitants of this planet will “ease” into this situation so gradually that no one will ever know it’s happening until it’s upon them. I don’t think it will be a bad thing either. One of things that continually breeds discontent, distrust and war is the difference between people’s race and culture. If there IS not difference then they will have to find something else to fight about. Maybe they won’t be able to.

 

 

 

There is the quickly changing face of technology. I would have NEVER in my wildest dreams as a child imagined the world as it is today. There have been so many advances in the last 50 years that it makes the 1950’s seem like the Stone Ages. What we take for granted every day now, would have seemed like a trick of magic back then. Computers will continue to advance and now that robotics IS actually taking off like Isaac Asimov thought it would, our descendants can look forward to a world where the physical part of living will become easier and easier.

 

 

 

There will be issues that come up, ethical issues, which will challenge the very core of the morals of our society. What about a computer program that can store the “essence” of a person on a program, and come up with a “virtual” person who is exactly like the person who is dying. Anyone ever seen the movie “Freejack” with old Mick Jagger? That’s science fiction still, BUT so was Jules Verne back in the late 19th century. It may not be that a person’s “essence” can be stored on a computer and then put back into another person’s body. I am not sure it will ever get to that point. BUT to create a “virtual” person with the knowledge and character of a real live person is but a few steps away from becoming a reality. You can “store” Grandma or Grandpa on the handy dandy virtual person program, and pull them up to talk to any time you want. How would you like that? Kind of a spooky thought isn’t it? Yet, right now people who play the high tech computer games that generate “characters” to play through (the avatar type games) are already interacting in a very close knit way with these “quasi-people.” You can give them character traits, physical characteristics, and other things which make them “almost” seem human. It’s only a few steps away until you can do the same thing with your dear Uncle Bob, believe me. Soulless, yes. Interaction there will be. There could also be a use for this type of program to reduce overpopulation, in that people who are not allowed, or don’t want to have a “real” live child, can have a virtual child which they can “raise” from a baby all the way up through adulthood. The cost would be quite a bit cheaper to raise this type of “child” too.

 

Medically speaking, the people who can make it 20 or 30 more years are likely to be able to live practically as long as they want. With the research and discoveries in genetics that are now taking place, it won’t be long until the genes that cause “aging” as we know it, will be discovered and neutralized. People who are well off enough financially will be able to benefit from this expensive technology and beat “the system” Dick Cheney may actually still be here in the year 2100! Hmmm…?

 

 

 

I think that many diseases which afflict people such as cancer, heart disease, and all the big killers will be beaten. People will have to be run over by a Fire Truck in order to die. That’s about the only thing which will do it. However, I am sure there will be a lot of volunteers to be “uploaded” into the computer program which I mentioned in the previous paragraph. After all, who REALLY wants to live forever? And you probably will still have the old aches and pains that won’t go away. (Maybe not, they may have something for that too) Besides, you might be able to do things on that computer program you could NEVER do in real life, like fight dragons, or fly. That would be a hoot, right?

 

 

 

 

 

I wonder if people will still be able to go out and have a juicy steak or a lobster, or if everyone will have to eat those little pills like the one that Willy Wonka invented that turned Violet, well…purple I guess. Hopefully, he will have perfected them by then and we won’t have to go somewhere and have the juice squeeze out of us.

 

I kind of wonder too if space travel will advance to the point where we will be actually sending people out on missions to other galaxies. Will the episodes of Star Trek, The Next Generation be a reality or a near reality at least? If we can tear enough money away from the government’s efforts at exterminating people in other countries, we may be able to give some of it back to the space program and find out. ( Aw shoot, I don’t wanna’ hit a nerve about that)

 

 

July 2011

 

There is no hope like an old hope

 

July 26 2011

 

We are all creatures of our own memories. Without remembering where we have been, we cannot ever know where we must go. Trust to your memories to lead you along the right path, or if you choose to forget perhaps along the wrong path one more time.

 

I remember when life was as simple as scrapping up enough dirt off the road to Grandpa’s house to make a “speedway” for my little tootsie toy cars. Hours of FUN in the dirt. Damn if I wouldn’t like to do that again….

 

I have looked inside myself and firmly believe I have found the help I need. For if I cannot help myself first, then how can expect it from others? If I cannot ask myself the hard questions and stand the answers, I shouldn’t look to others for easy solutions. We all need help in this life, but most of what we need we already have.

 

June 23 2011

I have been talking about a lot of stuff lately…stuff that may or may not count.  I wanted to share the way that I REALLY feel about life, so that if and when I say silly things on FB, just remember what I have said here.

It all began with one day…when there was a really beautiful Sunrise and Sunset…..

We have all seen them.  Beautiful Sunrises.  Mornings when the light turns dozens of colors behind a scant screen of clouds.  Everything from muted purples to magentas, to bright blood red.  How does a beautiful Sunrise make you feel?

 

For me the beginning of the day, which is signified by that marvelous sunrise, symbolizes a daily rebirth.  A new beginning, a time when everything is new again and all options for doing things wonderful, useful, loving, and kind are open.  It renews my soul.  It tells me in no uncertain terms that I am alive, and that I have been treated to the sight of some of the most beautiful colors on God’s own palette.  I give thanks for life and the chance to live it.  To experience other people, people who I love and who love me.  To touch another person, even to simply shake hands or to brush back the hair of my daughter, my granddaughter, or my wife from their foreheads is an experience that I will only get to enjoy once.  Not in terms of the number of times that I touch them., but in terms of doing this act while in this life.  Just this once, which I will remember in any case.  Just this one opportunity to live and to feel the touch of the ones you really love.

 

I can taste food for another day and hear music.  I don’t really even care what kind most of the time…I generally like it all.   I get the privilege of talking and interacting with other people, most of the time in a positive manner.  All of this starts with the beautiful Sunrise that I saw on the way to work yesterday.

 

Then that same evening, there was a stupendous Sunset.  How does a gentle sunset make you feel?

 

The colors were a similar palette as was the Sunrise, but the feeling was different.  Day was leaving.  I felt peaceful.  I felt content.  My work for the day was done.  I am at my home, my familiar place, my territory.   I had accomplished all I could during the day and I was satisfied.  Maybe I should have tried to do more, I feel that way practically every day.  But in the awesome light of that Sunset I felt happy, tired but happy.  I was glad to be home, and be with the ones that I love.  My tasks that others would have me do were over.  I would eventually lay down that night, and rest this body that God gave me, happy to have seen another day on this Earth.

 

Life and Death are like the sunrise and sunset.  Both are beautiful in their own way, similar, yet vastly different.  It’s what happens in between, what WE make happen in between that forms the legacy of our lives.   It’s the appreciation of getting to see the sunrises and sunsets of other peoples lives that hopefully will make us appreciate our own and be less afraid of the final sunset that we all must come to one day.  Not melancholy, but happy to have shined and to have enjoyed being in the light.  I know I am!

 

We all fear the unknown, and not knowing what’s on the other side of that Sunset IS a bit scary.  Even to those who are secure in their beliefs and solid in their convictions.   I experience that tinge, we all probably do when we think about it.  But I believe the soul goes on, and we are meant to all be together again.  I am thankful for that.

 

June 19 2011

 

 

n the Webster’s dictionary a Father is defined as “one who has begotten a child, son or daughter, a generator, a male parent” I guess condensing it down into it’s simplest form, maybe Webster’s right in a really brief sort of way. But, being a REAL flesh and blood Father involves so much more than that. I haven’t always been the best or most “ideal” Father to my children. Mistakes were made. I wasn’t always right in some of the things I did…that’s for sure. Thinking back though, my Dad also made a lot of mistakes and still after all was said and done I loved him dearly and still do. I think what makes the difference even through the mistakes and missteps is caring! A child knows if you care of not. Mistakes can be forgiven when both child and parent have true love for each other. Fathers out there…make sure you care, make sure you love and set a good example for your children as much as possible. The rewards are so far beyond compare that there is only one other reward we can get that will be better, and that one is to meet our Heavenly Father one day, and thank him for all he gave use, and for loving us and caring enough for us to send HIS SON to die for us, so that we might live forever if we only believe.

 

June 14 2011

 

I love kids. Most of my life has been devoted to raising a handful of them. I feel like a lot of my children’s friends are my “kids” too. I see a lot of you here on FB, and it seems most of you turned out pretty decent.

Been going to Bible School the past couple of nights, and the little kids there are sure entertaining…I am even seeing the kids of my kids and their kids show up there…..it’s cool. It really gives you a connection to life and how it continues on no matter what, not matter if you’re there or not there.

Father’s day is this Sunday, and this is the 2nd one since my Dad passed away. He woulda’ been proud of all his “kids” too.

There is a pureness and innocence to most of them that I wish could be retained into adulthood.  Jesus said: ” Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God.”  

Thanks to all the children for reminding me that life is to be lived and enjoyed, and that we don’t have to worry about the little things ALL the time.  Sometimes it’s just whether you want mustard or ketchup on a corn dog that counts!

 

May 6 2011

 

I heard the song by Hugh Prestwood, “The Song Remembers When” on the way to Trade Day this morning.

 

Trisha Yearwood cut the song and it got played a gazillion times (still getting played and making Mr. Prestwood richer!)

 

I love that song though. It makes me think back through my life and realize that no matter what was happening, or when it happened, there was music in the “background” This music imprinted itself on my brain, along with the memory itself, whether good or bad that was happening at the time, and has become a part of the pattern of my life, against which my brain compares all things when deciding for me what I am going to be thinking about at any given moment.

 

Now that’s a whale of a statement, ain’t it? We think that WE control our brains, but I think it comes out being the other way around, don’t you? How many of us can keep our thoughts tuned onto one particular thing for more than just a few fleeting moments, before moving on to something else? Our thoughts are like fireflies on steroids, flitting around from place to place so quickly that we sometimes miss some of the landing spots. I guess that’s why we forget things.

 

Ahh…enough about the brain already, I get sidetracked!

 

When I think about the songs of my life, I have to start with Dean Martin, and whoever it was that cut the song “How Much is That Doggie in the Window” My folks had an old Philco Radio which I used to listen to religiously every day. (I gave it to Ted a few years. hope he gets it to play again someday) They only had a few records and I can remember the song about the “Doggie” like it was yesterday. “How much is that doggie in the window?” “The one with the waggly tail” “How much is that doggie in the window?” “I do hope that Doggie’s for sell.” And then there was “Amore” by Deano. I listened to that song thousands of times when I was five years old. “When the Moon hits your eye, Like a big Pizza pie, that’s Amore’” “When the stars seem to shine, like you’ve had too much wine, that’s Amore” Heck, I never knew what Amore was until I was a teenager and heard somebody use the term for love on some TV show! Maybe it was “Laugh In” I can’t remember that. All I know is that if I hear either of those two songs, or any of the others that were on those records, I am instantly transported back to 1955, and I am sitting in front of that old Philco radiantly enjoying the music.

 

The late 50’s and early 60’s were times of growing up, and also the BEST time for music in this century. (that’s my opinion anyway, and if that ain’t the truth then why are there so many “oldies” stations in the country still playing them, and why do my children and grandchildren know the lyrics to all of them as well as I do?) You had Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis competing with each other for the title of “swing King” A lot of people think Elvis won, but ol’ Jerry Lee wasn’t no slouch with “Goodness Gracious Great Balls of Fire!!” I never saw Elvis play the piano with his feet either, but he DID have some great Karate moves in those white suits! Every time I hear “Rock a Hoola Baby” it takes me back to my Little League Baseball days! The great thing about old Elvis was that he seemed to put out a movie a year there for while, and it was really something to look forward to. I couldn’t wait to see which female star would be opposite “The King” in his next Hollywood spectacular. Ann Margaret? Mary Tyler Moore??? Yep.

 

There were so many good time songs. I had a little band back then starting in about 1966, and we played every possible conceivable song under the sun. (our own version of course, and sometimes not very well) We learned it all. The Beatles (of course, I mean…look at half my t-shirts!) The Monkees, The Young Rascals, The Stones, The Animals, The Dave Clark Five (did they all start with “The”??!!) We covered them all and joyfully so, sometimes too joyfully!! It was the best of times. Looking back at it through the glasses of a 60 year old man, it was certainly very, very good. And it wasn’t just me. We all had those good times with that music didn’t we? I now even remember a lot of Motown tunes with fondness. It’s hard for me to believe that I am riding down the load some days singing along to “Baby Love”, but I do.

 

All of this has continued right on through those years and up until this very day. I remember “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” the night my daughter died, and I cry every time I hear it still. I remember “Saturday in the Park” the night my second daughter was born, and I still feel like dancing every time I hear it!

I reckon I have tried to pass this legacy on to my children. I bet they can’t remember the first time they heard me sit next to them and play the guitar and sing to them. A lot of “House of the Rising Sun” and “Puff the Magic Dragon” I am sure. But, what the heck.  I think they all appreciate music though, and I have tried to do the same thing for all my Grandchildren.  Evie Kay and I are practicing an acoustic version of the song “Bad Blue Jay” just about every day now. One of these days when we get it down pat, I’ll record it and maybe post it on Youtube!

 

When I hear “Poor Wayfaring Stranger” I think of my Grandmother, and “How Beautiful Heaven Must Be” makes me think of Grandpa, of whom I CANNOT remember the first time I sat next to him and listened to him sing hymns out of his old tattered hymnals and wave his hand around in the air in time to the music.

 

I went down to Church many a time with him and got up front and helped him “lead” music.  I think I was four years old the first time I did that.  When I grew to be a teenager and even on into my adult years, the older people who went to church there when I was little would come up to me and say “Do you remember getting up there with Jervis, and leading singing?”  Yes I did, and yes I still do.  There’s not many of them left now to ask that question, because four years old was a lifetime ago now.  I think Ms. Patsy, the piano player at the church was the last person I remember who asked me that question.  That, and I don’t get up to Blue Ridge and “home” anymore….

 

I guess there is significance there. You get what you give sometimes, and you give what you have gotten. I got so very, very much from the people who loved me when I was a child.

 

So, when you are riding down the road, or sitting around in your house and you hear “The Song Remembers When” by Hugh Prestwood, or any other song which makes your remember, or which makes you be wistful or happy,… be thankful that there are some folks in the world who want to help keep the world “alive” with the music which fills their hearts, souls and minds.  I am one of those people.  I can’t help it, it’s just as much a part of me as my arm or legs.

 

 

 

April 24 2011

 

Since today was Easter, I decided earlier in the week that I would polish my black shoes before going to church today.  They were scuffed up something bad.  You see, I’m not much of a shoe polisher anymore.  There probably hasn’t been a bottle of black shoe polish in this house for YEARS!

I brought my shoes out to my chair, and opened up the bottle and put them on the nice little blue rug that sits in front of my chair.  I took the top off of the polish, and opened it up.  Suddenly, somewhere in the back of my head I heard a voice say:

“You better put down a piece of newspaper on that floor before you do that!”  It was the voice of my Dad…coming out of so long ago.  You see, my Dad believed in putting that newspaper down on the floor as you didn’t DARE get a drop of shoe polish on my Mom’s clean floor.  He also believed in polishing your shoes EVERY week, especially since we generally had only one pair of shoes at a time for both school and weekends.  Scuff ’em up during the week, and polish ’em up on Sunday morning before Church.  Every Sunday morning, for so, so many years.  After I grew up, I grew out of the habit.

I thought about getting up and grabbing a piece of last weeks Summerville News, an appropriate usage for that periodical.  Nah…I said, I’ll be careful.  I got through the fist shoe just fine…looking good.  As I started on the second shoe the little foam top wasn’t putting out as much polish as I though it should so I pushed down on it.  Mistake!!  It slooshed out and about half off it ran off the shoe onto the rug.  I finished polishing the shoe and went and got a rag and some Windex and did the best I could to get it up.  Left a little black stain despite the best I could do.

I thought about getting some carpet cleaner, but I’m just going to leave the spot there.  Every time I look at it I might just remember to do what Daddy tells me the next time.  You might be able to ignore your “raisings”  but you never forget ’em.

Happy Easter Dad and Mom….seeya’ again someday, and thanks for all the advice for those 60 years!!

 

April 9, 2011

 

The guitar and I go back a long way. I think I was 11 when Dad and I first went to the pawn shop in Rome and looked at guitars. I wanted a Bass (wanted to be in the band y’know) but I came away with a Kay scroll side acoustical guitar, with strings that were about ½ inch above the fret.

Now anybody who has ever played a guitar knows that the “action” of the strings, i.e. the closer they are to the frets and the neck of the guitar, the easier they are to press down and get a sound out of, and thus the easier the instrument is to play. ½ inch is a LONG way for a beginner, especially with metal strings. I found out after I had owned the guitar for several weeks that the strings could be adjusted down. By that time, I had permanent calluses on ALL the fingers on my left hand…which have never, never gone away. This is the way you can tell a real guitarist though. Let somebody pick up a guitar and plunk away on it for a half hour and then they start looking at the tops of their fingers like “damn that hurts” NEWBIE! Either that, or they wienie out and go to a Spanish guitar with nylon strings and say “I want to be like Segovia” Well, if you want to be like Andres Segovia, you better plan on practicing 12 to 14 hours a day and have natural talent to begin with to boot. There are NOT many Segovia’s, or even Chet Atkins for that matter. Some people have it, and some people don’t. You can teach yourself, or be taught to play a guitar, but you can’t be taught to be a Segovia or an Atkins. That kind of talent has to be in the genes. But…in any case…as I was saying, the metal makes the man when it comes to guitars, and if you ain’t got the calluses, don’t whine!

I had three guitar lessons before my Dad figured out it was too much of a pain to take me all the way 6 miles down the road to Summerville, especially since I wasn’t much interested in learning how to finger pick “Red River Valley” or any other country tune from the 1940’s. I finally ended up doing it the way I have done almost everything else in my life…I learned it on my own. I looked at a book and got the chords down pat and then just started practicing them over and over again. I watch other people who knew how to play do their thing, and picked up some things from them. Mostly I did my own thing though.

I don’t pick up any of my guitars as often as I should. I have three or four of them sitting around. (And yes, one of them is a Spanish guitar that my wife got me for a Wedding present! Thing about it is, I HAD the calluses before I got this guitar so when I play it, I don’t feel like a wienie) This past week when I was feeling like crap, I picked my guitar up off the bed and just sat down and started to play. For me, at least right now, it’s still comes easy. My brain sends those long ago learned and practiced chords and notes down through the nerve endings in my fingers and the music starts to come out of the guitar. It’s like a small miracle really. I can’t remember what I had for supper last night, but I can still play “Down Yonder” or “Wildwood Flower” like it was 1963! Over forty years and my brain still remembers! I think the day I pick up the guitar and I can’t remember the chords or the notes that I learned so long ago is going to be a VERY sad day. I really hope it never happens. There is such a bond between a player and their instrument, that if that bond is broken, it would be almost like a death of dear friend. Oh how much you would mourn that loss! I know the look in my Grandfather’s eyes back years ago when he would pick up that banjo that he had played for years and couldn’t quite get the music to come out the way it did before. It was a sad and confused look. A pitiful look. It wasn’t too long after that when Grandpa had to go to the nursing home because he really couldn’t remember anything anymore. Or anybody. I pray to the creator that I don’t go that route. One of the first songs I wrote when I took up songwriting was about Grandpa and his banjo. It’s called “Blue Ridge Mountain Symphony.” I have a good demo of the song, maybe one of these days I will get it on the site so folks can listen to it.

 

I really think that the fact that man decided to pick up some pieces of wood and put cat guts on it, or thump on a hollow log and call it music, was one of the things that eventually differentiated us from all the other creatures that our creator made. I can’t recall seeing any animal but a human pick up a musical instrument and play it. (ok…they train chimps to do it…but that’s different, they don’t give a hoot….or perhaps that’s an ooh..ooh…ooh…about what they are doing! Man is the only creature who has made a connection with things musical, and I think that is one of the only real connections we have with divinity. I really think God enjoys music. He digs dancing too…remember when David danced before God, and he was pleased? We sell God short sometimes I think, imagining that ALL he is, is this stern and terrible judge sitting behind a judge’s bench with a big gavel, ready to convict us of all our sins and send us straight to blazes.

 

Anyway, I digress. So the other day when I continued to play, I also started humming some familiar tunes to the chords. Peter, Paul and Mary were remembered of course, with “Jet Plane,” and “Puff the Magic Dragon” I covered Peter and Gordon with “I Go to Pieces” I stepped forward with “The Ones the Wolfs Brought Down” a song that Garth Brooks recorded which never made to the singles chart, but in my opinion certainly should have. I went through “Stepping Stone” which Paul Revere and the Raiders, and the Monkees covered. I did “Friends in Low Places” because that’s just how I felt! Then I just sat there for half an hour more making up little runs and tunes from the Blues to Rock and Roll. I found a couple of riffs I really liked and just played them over and over, hoping I might remember them if I ever get near a recorder again, and want to put down something new. I really wish I had the time. I feel like I have cheated something or somebody sometimes because I haven’t been as “creative” as I should have been. When do you have time to be creative? Seems like back in the 80’s I had a hell of a lot more time to write and create and try to do things that might be some kind of “legacy” Now I’m not so sure about legacies anyway. Who’s really going to care? Is it something my children and grandchildren would REALLY want to sit down and take time to listen to, or will they get into the same rut as I seem to be in now, which leaves you with no time to do anything but work, eat and sleep and a few minutes on the weekend to catch up with your chores. I swear to goodness, I can never remember the days being so crammed full of stuff that the only time I pick my guitar up and play it is when I am at home sick, and my chest is feeling funny and I have these strange little twinges, and I need some solace from somewhere.

How I do go on about a piece of wood with some string pulled across it, don’t I? But yet, there IS something mystical in our relationship with our instruments, just like there is in our relationships with other people. I know for a fact, I pick up guitars at stores and flea markets and stuff and strum them and they seem like “strangers” to me. The sounds that come out are not as comforting as they are from my familiar instruments, especially my 40 year old Classical guitar my wife gave me as a wedding present. The sounds I get from her are like recordings from years past of all the things, people and places which have I have experienced while I have owned her. (yes the guitar is feminine!) Those memories which are stored there could not come from some “newcomer” It’s like your family. I know we meet and enjoy new friends…especially those with common memories of things that we have experienced, but no one has the connections that your family has to you. That’s why my family is so special to me.

Well…I guess I may go pick up the guitar and plunk on it a while. I hope I haven’t bored everyone to death with my ramblings. I’ll leave you with this from the late George Harrison:

 

 

look at you all see the love there that’s sleeping

While my guitar gently weeps

I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping

Still my guitar gently weeps

I don’t know why nobody told you how to unfold your love

I don’t know how someone controlled you

They bought and sold you.

 

I look at the world and I notice its turning

While my guitar gently weeps

With every mistake we must surely be learning

Still my guitar gently weeps

I don’t know how you were diverted

You were perverted too

I don’t know how you were inverted

No one alerted you.

 

I look at you all see the love there that’s sleeping

While my guitar gently weeps

Look at you all…

Still my guitar gently weeps

 

April 7 2011

 

Today is a day for change, and only WE can decide to make a change in ourselves. Nobody else is going to, or has the ability to change you unless you want it. Other people can affect you, but NOT change you. Nobody else has to know you have pledged yourself to change. They will know by your actions. We cannot remain the same and expect the world to get better!

 

Mar 23 2011

 

I feel like Summer is just around the corner. As the calendar starts to near the end of March, I always start to look for it, start to feel it in my bones. Maybe it’s because the days start getting a little longer and a little warmer. Maybe it’s because they start talking about the Baseball trades that are happening on the sports reports. Opening Day is just a few days away! I feel the butterflies start to swim around in my stomach.

I tell you, spring and summer were the best times back in the 50’s and 60s’. None of that year round school for us old timers! May 31 rolled around, and it’s see ya’ later to the teachers until the first week of September….Yahooo!!

I would go to the old wooden toy box back in my room, and starting digging down to the bottom, looking for my old worn out, smelly leather baseball glove with “Pee Wee” Reece’s name engraved in it. I don’t know how I ended up with Pee Wee, as I never played a lick of ball in the infield. I was always an outfielder.

I tried out for third base once, but after I had stopped the first four hard bouncer’s that came my way with my face instead of my glove, the coach thought it might be safer to put me in left field. I agree with his decision.

I liked left field. It was one of those positions where you could kind of day dream a little. Most everything that came out that way was either an easy pop fly, or a one bouncer. I was a cinch at catching those. None of that “hot corner” stuff for me.

I once was standing out in left field during a game and looking down at the ground trying to spot any four leaf clovers that might be growing there. I heard the loud crack of the bat, and looked up to see the baseball headed over my head. Way over my head. I didn’t want to look completely stupid, so I turned around and stuck my old glove out and ran as fast as I could towards the fence. The ball dropped right into the webbing of my glove. I never saw it until it did. I heard a cheer go up from the stands, and when we came in, I got more pats on the back, and attaboys then I had ever gotten before. I just said “I had it all the way” I could never bring myself to disappoint all those people by telling them it was just pure luck.

The other great thing about warm weather was spring lizard and craw dad hunting at Grandpa’s and Grandma’s house. When warm weather hit, we would go up there a lot more often. It was difficult during the winter time, because there were only two bedrooms downstairs at their house, which meant the remainder of the guests, had to sleep upstairs. During the winter time, sleeping upstairs was just like sleeping outside. There was NO heat. I spent many a winter night with 10 quilts piled on top of me, unable to turn over, but desperately trying to conserve what little body heat was emanating from me in order to be alive the next morning. I always managed to do it somehow.

 

So, besides at Christmas, I didn’t like Winter time visiting at the old folk’s house!

 

But with spring and warm weather coming, there was the promise of fishing, and in order to fish there had to be bait. This meant my favorite activities of digging in the dirt for worms, and turning over the rocks down in the little fast running creek in front of the folk’s house for Spring lizards and Crawdads.

The only draw back to trying to catch a bucket full of these water dwelling creatures was that they were also favorites of the snakes that prowled the banks of that same creek. I was never really too afraid of snakes when I was a kid until after my Grandpa’s Uncle “Lark” Davenport killed a rattlesnake one day that he stretched across the old dirt road leading up to Grandpa’s house. He stuck its head end in the bank on one side, and its tail end in the dirt bank on the other side. Now, that little old road was narrow, but I estimate it was at least 7 feet across, so my respect for the snakes in those parts increased tremendously after that. I asked Uncle “Lark” how he killed it, and told me he cut its head off with a hoe while he was out in his corn crib. Apparently the rattler was stocking up on some of the rats that always frequented that place. “If he hadn’t been a rattler I’d have let him be,” said Uncle Lark. I’d have let him be anyway, I think. He would have owned the corn crib after that. Rats and all.

Some of those spring lizards that we used to catch back then were as big as small snakes. Imagine turning over a big old rock, and seeing something black wiggling around that’s about a foot long. Would you stick your hand down in there and grab it? I sure did, and laughed about it the whole time. “If the bass don’t bite that,” I thought “then it might bite the bass!” Either way, we get the fish.

The crawdads were harder to catch then the spring lizards. Have you ever seen one of those little boogers take off? They are like a backwards rocket! I don’t know how they do it, but when they get scared they shoot water out their rear ends, start flapping their tails and away they go. You had to be good at estimating where they were GOING to be, not where they had been, in order to catch them. I never had the least idea that humans ate those things when I was a kid. The first time I went to Louisiana as an adult, and someone tried to serve me a dish made with Crawdads, I got kind of nauseated. After I tasted it though, it wasn’t half bad. I kind of like Etouffe’ now.

 

Yep, that’s how I feel today since there is a little warmth in the air. That little old creek is still there, but I don’t know what the new owners of the land would think about an old man tromping down the middle of their creek with a Styrofoam bucket and yelling yahoo every time he came up with a lizard. I wonder if there are even any left?

 

 

Mar 20 2011

 

Everybody is equal below ground

 

People should remember that bad deeds are like boomerangs with barbs.

 

 

Feb 2011

 

When I was a little child, I always thought I would grow up and be the best in the world at something. For some reason, it didn’t work out that way.

I can think of dozens of things that I am adequate at. Some things I have ended up getting fairly good at. But that elusive “best” has always been out of my reach.

Obviously, at 60 years old I can now give up on becoming the Best hitter in the Major leagues, or winning the Masters 4 times. I can forget running in the Olympics. That career in professional singing is out the door for sure. The old throat just ain’t what it used to be.

I tried my hand at songwriting, and novel writing. Not working out well for me.

So….

I feel sorta’ like the theme song from “Cops” “Whatcha’ gonna do when they come for you?”

Old Satchel Paige was an African American baseball player, who could have been the best pitcher in history. He was born before his time though, and never got to pitch in the Major leagues until he was in his sixties. He was still magnificent, even at that age. He had a saying about looking behind you though. “Just keep on goin’ forward” he would say “and don’t look back, cause something might be catchin’ up with you!”

I am beginning to think that something is catching up to me, but I DO NOT want to look behind me!

Yep, I could have been the best in the world at SOMETHING. But that’s in the past. So I will go on ahead and do the best I can do in the time I have left. Isn’t that what we all should do?

I heard on the radio last week about a scientist who was going around the Oceans of the world, and taking samples of the water and testing it for microorganisms. Turns out, he was finding thousands of new ones that nobody knew existed. You would probably not really be surprised by that, but at about the same time they announced they had discovered a new breed of big cat in the jungles of Borneo…a new kind of Leopard! Amazing!

If you can think about life itself, and you are NOT amazed, then I think something is wrong. I never CEASE to be amazed every day, and every night by the life all around me on this planet. My curiosity about whether or not there is life like what we have in other parts of the Universe is so high! I wish there was a way to find out.

To think that we live on a planet that abounds with SO much life, all the way from those tiny microorganisms to the beautiful deep jungle Leopards is mind boggling. We read and hear about how life IS endangered and will BE endangered by such things as human overpopulation, wars, Global warming, threats from interstellar disasters such a huge meteors and comets…and it sometimes makes it seem as if all life is going to cease to exist. But, I don’t think so. I think this planet; this Mother Earth is one of a kind.

I think that if we could somehow look a billion years into the future of our planet that there would still be life here. Life IS fragile, but for some reason THIS particular planet was created to foster and nurture life, like no other one. (That we know of anyway)

So, I think that life will find a way. I hope that it is HUMAN life that continues to find a way. I pray that we can grow past the point where we have to solve our problems through war, murder and all other types of bad ways that humanity has invented over the past ever how many thousands of years. If we can do this… perhaps when that billion year point comes, WE will be reaching out to those other stars and galaxies that we stand in awe of every night when we look up into the sky and WE can bring peaceful life to those places that don’t already have it.

That would be a wonderful thing wouldn’t it?

I can’t begin to tell you how hectic the last few weeks have been.

There’s a lot going on with in my personal life right now, as some of you may know.

There’s a lot still going on in our world, as all of us should know.

 

As I begin to take a look at all things, I am finding of course that I refer more to the past than the future. I guess it’s because unless I live to 112 years old (which is possible, but not likely) I am already well into the last 1/3 of my life. I look back more than I look forward. The present seems to pass by way, way to quickly into that past. Days are blurred. I can’t remember what the date is a lot of times. I guess it really doesn’t matter though. I feel like life is marked by events, not by dates. When I remember things, both good and bad, I usually don’t remember them “by date” but more by what was happening.

I couldn’t tell you exactly what the date was when the U.S. cleared out of Viet Nam. But all the images are burned into my image.

 

I don’t remember what day it was when my oldest son nearly got his arm torn off in a machine at work, but I can damn well tell you I remember coming into the office where he was sitting, before the ambulance even got there, and seeing the bones sticking up out of his arm.

 

I don’t remember what year the Christmas was that my daughter marched out of her bedroom, sat down at her brand new little table and chairs that Santa had brought her (without even noticing they were there!) and demanded in her stentorian voice: “I want my Breakfast!”

 

I can’t remember the date my youngest son fell off a horse he was riding out in Idaho, but I was so scared he was going to break his neck I couldn’t even yell.

 

I just don’t know that dates are all that important. Its life that happens and what happens that matters.

I am joyous and hopeful for my children and grandchildren and for my younger friends. I wish for them all the possibilities and opportunities which I have had and more. I wish for them more success than I have had in many areas. I wish them fewer struggles with tough problems.

 

When I was young, I thought for sure I would grow up and be a singer, or a writer. I even entertained the thought of teaching. But, it didn’t happen. I am what I am. (With apologies to Popeye the Sailor man) Life turned me this way. I am giving up on being a movie star, pop singer, best selling author, and millionaire financier. I am going to just continue to be me, and hope that it’s enough.

 

I think maybe that if I can do that, then I will realize how lucky I have really been. Guess I will be thinking that over this year when I watch ol’ Jimmy Stewart running down the streets of Bedford Falls!!

Without a doubt, much of what we think we know is false. Even being as “smart” as we humans think we are we don’t even know everything about our own bodies. When we move out from there, into the world around us, and eventually into the Universe that surrounds us, our knowledge becomes exponentially less and less.

There are SO many theories on how the Universe started, where it’s headed and how it’s going to end. Some of them are theological in nature, and some are scientific. None of them are right, probably not even near right.

I shudder when I think about how little I know. I have to take most things I do every day on faith. I have faith when I plug in the coffee machine that it is going to make me a cup of coffee. If it didn’t, I don’t have the knowledge to tear it apart and remake it so that it would. If I put my key in the car, and turn the switch and it doesn’t start, most of the time I wouldn’t know what to do. When I had my heart attack, I couldn’t fix my arteries. Of course there are people who DO know how to fix these things, and it’s a good thing too. Otherwise, most of use would be in a heap of trouble.

But, even those people who are “technologically” smart, don’t have all the answers. Every few years or so, a new theory comes out about how the Universe began. Of course, all religions would acknowledge that it was ‘created’ if you will, by God. A thinking consciousness started the ball rolling and made use what we are today. Makes sense to us as humans, because WE are conscious thinking creatures. That’s what separates us from the rest of the creatures….at least so we “think” ( I am not so sure sometimes, when my little dog plays me for a sucker that she is not “thinking” about what she is doing) I guess there is all different levels of thinking, and I am SURE that we are not in ANY way close to the “thinking” if that is what it is, of a consciousness so powerful it could create the Universe.

Now secularists have a harder time trying to explain how something like the Universe started on it’s on. I read somewhere a few weeks back that they think all the matter that it took to get the Universe started, could be compressed down into a ball the size of a basketball, but that it would weigh some astronomically heavy weight. Some basketball! When this thing decided to explode and start the Universe, it continually spread from a central point and made us what we are today. The scientists can look at light coming in from outside our Galaxy that took billions of years to get here. That’s cool. When we look up in the sky at night, and see the stars, we are not really seeing what is happening at the moment we are looking, but what happened years and sometimes hundreds or thousands of years ago and is just now reaching us. For all we know, some of those stars could be, and probably are, gone. Mind boggling ain’t it?

Well, I just don’t believe that either group has ALL the right answers. I personally believe the Universe was created, and didn’t just happen, but I don’t even PRETEND to understand the type of intellect it would take to do it.

 

I know that we have had books and bibles, and documents from the beginning of the time that man learned how to write, with all the theories about how things happened. All of those came from the minds of man, and have been shaped by the mind of man down through the centuries. None of them are accurate. I don’t think that we even know how to define accurate.

 

Now, don’t go all funny on me, and think I am being sacrilegious. I’m not. I don’t go around telling people what to believe, OR that what they believe isn’t right. I don’t have the right to do that, and neither does anyone else. There are, however, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. who would disagree with me. All of those religions consider that they have been given the innate approval, by the being that created the Universe to tell everyone that there way of thinking is the only one that is correct. I happen to disagree with them. There may be some correctness in all of them. Being a Christian, I personally believe in that philosophy and some may think it is a conflict of teaching that I would state I don’t believe in telling OTHER people what to believe, but I don’t. Everyone has to decide for themselves, and I think on that particular point that the being that created us, God if you will, has been totally succinct. You choose for yourself whether to be good or bad, light or dark. This choice is yours no matter what your religion or philosophy.

 

I think we will all find out one day, of course. I think that God would be totally unfair to just leaving us hanging about the answer to things. Of course, I could be wrong about that too. We may go to Heaven, or we may lay unconscious of the passing of time until we come back around in the endless cycle of the Universes coming and going. We MAY know nothing, and that’s that. I highly doubt this to be the case, but….