Month: March 2019

I found out not long ago that “they” (the experts) estimate that as many as 107 Billion people may have lived and died on this earth. It immediately made me think back several years…maybe 10 years or so ago, when there was a night in which the astronomers predicted there would be a huge number of falling stars visible. I wondered, in this little old town where there are so many lights from houses, from street lights, where…where could I go that it would be dark enough to have a great view of the meteor shower.

I decided to go to the grave yard. In the middle of the night…at 2 a.m. It was dark enough there, and slightly eerie.

I suppose most people would think I was crazy. I’ve always considered that the people who are in that place are not the ones you have to worry about though…so it didn’t bother me. It was better than I could have imagined….a storm, a huge storm of meteors practically filled the sky. They started out slowly…and I started counted them…but then when they came so fast…so rapidly..I had no hope of keeping pace, of keeping count. I wondered, how many are there? How many were there?

Now, I have to say that I’ve been dreaming a lot lately. I dream of people who I have lost in my life, people who have been dear to me who are now far away…people who I grew up with. I have dreamed of the end of time, and I have dreamed of the world the way it will be in a thousand years. I have dreamed of the Resurrection. I guess “old men will dream dreams” but finally now, today I know for sure how many falling stars there were on that night ten years ago. 107 Billion shootin’ stars baby!! All coming back down to say “hello….once upon a time we stood where you are…”

When you look in the mirror, who do you see looking back at you? Of course, I see “myself” the person who is an amalgamate of my Parents, my Grandparents and all of my other ancestors who have come before me.

Sometimes I see a glimpse of my Grandfather Stewart, sometimes a glimmer of my Dad. As I get older, this happens a little more frequently. I know that genetics has certainly played a part in what I see physically looking back at me. I also know genetics has also played a part in some of the personality traits which I have, some of the ways I act. I know that environment and external influences have also combined with these other factors in making me what I see.

We are limited by our genetics to some extent, but able to overcome much through learning and the environment we put ourselves into. That being said, then only our souls are individually ours, aren’t they? Until we are able to love that creature we see in the mirror and embrace what he or she is, we will not fully be able to love others to any extent. If we are not satisfied with what we see, only WE are able to affect a change for the better.

It is no bad thing to love one’s self…warts and all, faults and all, sins and all. As a matter of fact, it is a good thing. Only by learning to love ourselves can we learn to love ALL others, and only by doing that can we prove that we are individuals worthy of the title “human”

There’s a few things I can still remember:

I remember catching my first fish. it was at Lake Wanda Reita.

I remember my first day in school. They had to tear Sandy Hammond away from her Mom, but she was ok from then on.

I remember every person who lived in every house in my neighborhood in 1958. Jake Woods family lived next door, then the Ardens, and across from them lived Van Buren Rice. Across the street was Frank Watts and family. Up on West Pine was Paul Rosser, Flossie Mae, Dale, Annette, and their older sister…Paulette? was it…

And on the next street was my Uncle Curly, The Floyd family…Sloppy and Doris, Nancy Jim, Susan and Jimmy. The Barfield family, Jan and her sisters. Across from them, the Haygoods, with their boys…Mark was my age, then Randy, I think. Mrs. Rush and Marilyn. The Collettes, Joe and Ruth, Johnny and Jimmy and Marsha. Up on the hill to the North, The Caheelys, The Sprayberries, The Hawkins…with John and Jim. Just around the corner was Dennis and Don Durham and their folks…then the Langston family. I could go on and on. I know I left some out too. The Styles a little further down, and the Webb twins.

I reminisce as I walk that area. Then I walk West Hill, and a lot of those people are now there. Not more than a block from where they lived. Time goes by quickly.

Anybody who grew up in a little bittie town knows how I feel walking these streets. It’s past and present all rolled up a ball, and for people like me nostalgia just sometimes overcomes me, and stops me in my tracks. I’m 68, but I’m 6 sometimes too. But there is also still a future to live.

By the time I get back home, I’ve gotten it all pretty much out of my system. I’m back in the present and ready to press on. And I know why I stayed here. For the memories. To give my kids a chance at the same, not too bad small town raising. Its getting a lot different now, but I can’t complain too much. (although Paula might tell you different) Its still home, and that’s where the heart lies.

Pick up a Rubik’s cube. Now put on a blindfold. Now solve the puzzle…quickly…quickly…

Now, call the Rubik’s cube terrorism. Now you get some small inkling of how complicated is the current situation in our world.

My eyes well up with tears as I see the pictures and video of the carnage, this time from Belgium…as before from Paris, as from San Bernadeno, California, and from a Russian plane with 224 people, as with multiple deaths at a peace rally in Turkey, and a beach shooting in Tunisia, a mosque bombing….yes a mosque bombing….in Yemen, and as “far” back as a newspaper office in Paris, for some cartoons they drew….and on and on and on we could go back. All the way back to 1983 when 241 United States Marines died in Beirut, Lebanon, and six months before that as 64 Americans died at the bombing of our embassy in Beirut.

We forget how long we have been turning the sides of the Rubik’s cube, and still have not solved the problem. As far back as 1095 A.D?

It is a fearful situation again, as with all those other times, and it’s not over, because we still have not solved the problem. We are still blindfolded.

But the entire point of terrorism is to make you afraid to go about your normal life. Afraid to take your vacations, afraid to go shopping at the mall.

Do we keep closing in our circle of activities and living life until we are closed up in our houses with security cameras all around and guns in hand?

Do we react with anger and death dealing of our own volition?

Perhaps instead a Rubik’s cube, we should be trying to put together the three separate pieces of a puzzle ring. One representing love, one representing compassion and one representing patience.

Then when we get those three pieces locked into a perfect circle which has no beginning and no end, we can perhaps begin to understand each other as human beings, and revenge for past atrocities against each other can stop.

I’m not sure if it’s even possible or not in this world, but I’d give anything to make it so.

So I turn and turn and turn the cube over and over. Then finally I figure out that long ago religion has taken the stickers off the cube and moved them and I will never be able to solve the puzzle. I believe in a creator and a creation, but I’m not sure if God chooses sides.

At that point the cube explodes in my hands…….and I start to think, what can I do to make it better. What influence can my one little pitiful, senior citizen life exert. All I can do is just write an opinion. Maybe go somewhere this weekend with the family, and refuse to be afraid no matter where it’s at.

Working on the melody again….

Oh My Child- Lyrics copyright 2005 Larry Bowers

Oh my child,

You’re not alone,

Though sometimes,

It seems I’m gone,

I’m always right beside you,

To love you, and to guide you…

All I need to do is find you..

Call my name….

In this world that pulls you towards the bad,

Makes you want things, you know that you can’t have

Temptations of the worst kind,

Are blown against a weary mind.

Like a hurricane against a house of cards.

We wander in the dark of worldly things,

We rage against the wrong that living brings,

But I tell you one sweet day

When we go away.

The faith we’ve had won’t be a waste of time…

Baby Boomer

Sadness and melancholy creep in, as I think of what might have been.

If I’d been a little smarter, or a little bit more kind,

Could I have really changed the world, or maybe just one mind?

The mind that could have saved us all, and led us to great things,

But I wasn’t paying attention, I was thinking of the troubles life brings:

Paying bills, and 60 hour weeks….all that overtime.

I didn’t have the will to seek, that one imperfect mind.

The one I could have nurtured, wouldn’t have taken the fall.

The one who turned to baser things, he might have saved us all.

It’s the curse of my generation, the fault is mostly mine.

I wish I’d paid attention, and been a bit more kind.

Larry Bowers

There were a lot of tiny neighborhoods in our small town when I was growing up. Mind you, the town itself was never above 2500 people by much at any given time between the years of 1953, when my Daddy got out of the Navy and moved us to Trion, and June of 1969…when I got married, and embarked on my “adult” life.

Sixteen years. In those neighborhoods.

Frog town, Hottown, Happytop, Pennville, Mountain view, Dry valley, and quite a few more. Maybe all not technically within the city limits of Trion, but all within the influence of the two main factors in the north part of Chattooga county….the cotton mill, and the Trion City Schools.

In that sixteen year period, many of the residents in our county depended on Riegel textile for a living, and on the city schools for an education for their children.

The houses in our city were mostly converted mill houses. Originally built and owned by the mill for their workers, they were gradually sold to people as personal residences. People took those old mill houses and turned them into cozy homes. They tidied them up, painted them, renovated them, added on rooms, planted grass and vegetable gardens….and took pride in the ability to own a little piece of land of their own.

They kept the yards up nicely for the most part, and the town even gave out “yard of the month” awards for the best looking and most highly manicured yards. People took pride in their properties.

Kids played in the yards and streets. Nobody thought much about letting their children go and do things on their own. I remember walking three or four blocks from our house on Simmons street when I was eight years old, down to the old movie theatre, for Saturday matinees. Lots of cowboy movies, and a few science fiction thrillers were the object of our little kid desires back in those days. We also played outside….a lot. If I stayed in the house and tried to read comic books for too long, my Mom would shoo me out the back door with a “you need some sun, son”. And…that would be where I’d stay. I think I developed my love for all things outside from being “shooe’d out” so much.

I realize that things have to change, but as I drove through my “old” home town today, I looked around and through the visor of nostalgia felt sadness and just a tiny touch of pain.

I do realize however, to those that I saw today…and to the kids who are living in those neighborhoods today, they are going through their sixteen years just as I went through mine, and they will remember them just as fondly as I do.

For you see, it’s all a matter of perspective.

I know without a doubt that our lives here are akin to that of a caterpillar. We move along through life..taking from it what we need, what we want sometimes irrespective of what really is needed to nourish us for our future.

At some point…different times for each of us, we spin our chysillis and for all intents and purposes we are “dead” to the world, to our families, to all others. And there we remain, undergoing our metamorphosis. And one day when that change is complete we will, we most certainly will, break forth from our cocoons…and we will spread our wings and fly…fly to places we never knew existed, fly with our loves…perhaps even with those we did not know, or with those who hated us or derided us before both we and they were changed.

We will have a new body, a new vision of love, a new purpose….and it will be something we never imagined in our wildest dreams, something with a magnificent and mysterious purpose. That…is my dream and my hope for all of mankind.

I know I sometimes must appear a bizarre sight, walking all over town with my stick in my hand and occasionally stopping and using my phone to snap off a photo. People ride by and stare, and kids sometimes snicker. I really don’t mind.

I suppose they would really think me insane if they knew of the conversations going on in my mind as I amble along. I talk to my Dad. I’ve been known to say hello to the huge oak tree which sits in the yard of the house where I lived as a child. It’s been there my entire life and shows no sign of moving.

The hawk that flew overhead today with his “scree, scree, scree” got a wave out of me.

….and the wind whistled a bright tune on the rim of my hat”

And I just had to chuckle out loud as I recalled Eli tearing down the church aisles today, racing to the bathroom oblivious to the palm Sunday special music. God probably got a laugh out of that one too.

Life is to live, and not always walk in the shadow of our impending mortality. Forget about it for a while on days like today. Too soon you will have to consider it seriously enough, because Lordy how time does fly! Seems the only time it slows down is when I take that magic walking stick in my hand….

Some days I feel like a hypocrite, without a purpose.

A rebel at a peace conference. A teacher in an empty room.

A wanna be spirit without a womb.

An idea without a purpose.

A dissatisfied customer of the happy store.

An unwanted stranger outside tomorrow’s door.

A dreamer who awakes too soon from a sweet dream.