Author: thegraymaniac

I was thinking about the old Weave room tonight. Back before the air jets and sulzers…the days of the old X1′ s and X2′ s. The old clackety clack of the shuttle’s flying out and back, and the beat up slamming that filling yarn in so tight. That rhythmic beat you could hear before you even hit the front door. “Slamaty..Clamity..Slamity..Clamity” over and over and over again. Hundreds of them in time creating an almost unbearable noise and a vibration that shook deep inside your chest.

I remember no air conditioning, and the sweat falling off in salty rivulets…And the white t-shirts all the men wore being soaked with sweat and dirty and greasy from laying on the Weave room floor up under a loom, legs sticking out in the narrow alleys.

And all the women with their waste aprons shoving those round battreys on each loom full of wound double tight yarn spools fresh out of the spinning room, double checking that it’s the right gauge and thickness. “Can’t have no mixed yarn.” Says the floor boss. You’d get wrote up for that. “Hell with that thick yarn!” Momma says. “Can’t get a break without the battery running out.”

And them’s the good old days.

But when we cut ourselves the blood was red. And some fixer who was caught up would help fill the battries so you could take a break and go to the water house and eat a bite. And the paychecks came home, with one savings bond a week coming out of it. But…in the end the money ran out anyway. And the old looms gave way to the air jets. And things changed and changed and changed some more.

But is it better? I can still hear those old looms in my head. My hearings a little hard, but my eyes are a little misty.

A lot of times I still find myself picking up a pen and paper and write things down on them before I transcribe it to the cyber world.

To me, writing something down on a page, especially if you are trying to create something gives me a warmer more responsive feeling, as opposed to the cold, clinical, sterile feeling of creating something on a screen that sits up in front of you, like a monolithic all seeing eye, daring you to put your fingers against the keyboard and interact with it in some kind of weird pseudo sexual dance. A dance that it always seems to win. I still participate in that particular dance more often than I would like. In this day and age we have very little choice if we are to interact with the world at large. However, my deeper feelings are still recorded with pen and paper. Just an old habit that’s hard to break.

In my life time I have seen humans being gradually sucked into the black arms of technology, gradually a few steps at a time. I have gone along too, I will have to admit. Sometimes reluctantly, fighting against it tooth and nail, but more often like everyone else accepting the change as just another step to make life easier and more convenient for us.

Wood cook stoves have changed to electric and gas and then to microwaves. Dinner used to run around on two feet and your Grandmother would grab it, and it would be extremely fresh that night for supper. Now, we grab it out of the freezer from a box.

People used to walk places. Miles and miles to places. It wasn’t unusual for my Mother to walk 6 or 7 miles into “town” when she was a child, and then the same distance back after she had conducted whatever business she was doing. It took all day. You were tired after that and had no problems sleeping. Adults didn’t have any problems with sleep either. They worked all day in the fields, or in the barns or at the house. There was very little idle time. Maybe a little bit in the evenings before the sun went down to read a little in their tattered old Bibles before going to bed, exhausted. No problems sleeping. No sleeping pills needed due to having sat around all day and pecked on a computer keyboard and not gotten up and walked more than a few steps. No sleeping pills needed due to worrying about deadlines for unimportant things which seem critical. Just tired bones and muscles needing a full nights sleep before getting up at first light the next day to start over again.

Miles of walking. Now, I sometimes drive the single mile to the local Wal-Mart Superstore 5 or 6 times a day to pick something up. I am the one that worries about the critical things which are not critical and has to have the pill to sleep well. I don’t have to build a fire in a wood stove to stay warm, just turn up the gas or the electric heater. I wonder if I am better off.

Oh, and on those trips to Wal-Mart ( I really don’t particularly like Wally World, but…I would have to drive 20 miles to go to another store that has what they have, SO I conform…what’s a person to do?) most of the time I used to end up buying some pre-packaged stuff to fix for supper. I used to pop a Freshetta Pizza out of the box, and pop it into the oven. I used to NEVER look at the labels. I was afraid of reading them. I didn’t want to know what it took to preserve what I was eating. I’ve changed that by a long ways now…trying to pay attention to all the stuff that I have been consuming over the years which has been slowly killing me. Will it work or not…time will tell.

I know that Grandma used to cook stuff in Pure Lard. For a long time the Drs. said that was really bad for you, all that animal fat and stuff. I don’t know about that though. There is some contradictory report on the TV news every day now about what’s good for you and what isn’t. It’s enough to boggle your mind. If you try and keep up with it, and do what they say you have to change the way you eat and drink about every other week because some study shows this or that. I quit keeping up with that too, and just eat what I think is right for me. A lot of veggies and stuff. I guess if it’s bad for me one day, and good for me the next I figure things are balancing each other out over the long run. Right?

I can barely remember back before there was a TV in the house. Just vaguely. I remember listening to records and radio programs on the Philco combination Radio/Phonograph that my folks owned. There were some great singers. Sinatra, Dean Martin, Rosemary Clooney. There some funny radio shows. All of those are fuzzy memories though. I don’t think we used that radio more than a few times after the first little Black and White TV came into the house. After that, it was ‘I Love Lucy’, ‘The Honeymooner’s” and Baseball games during the week. And then on Saturday mornings, it was the BEST of all. There were Western’s with Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and Hoppalong Cassidy. You name them, they were there. The cartoons were great too. Bugs Bunny and Popeye the Sailor man. The “Officer Don” show, with the puppets and the cartoons and clowns, not to speak of “Howdy Doody” and old Buffalo Bob. Who could resist that over listening to the radio? We sure didn’t realize we were being suckered into a new life style though. It just seemed like entertainment back then, and not a shady plot to take over our lives. But boy we were wrong, weren’t we?

Now, there are 4 or 5 TV’s in more every house. Every resident usually has one of their own. There are 2 or 3 computers, there are enough Nintendo game systems, and Microsoft game systems out there now to fill up the Superdome if you could stand up at the top and chunk them all in, prior to setting them all on fire in order to save mankind. I am afraid it’s a little to late though. And I will even have to admit that at my house there are two TV’s, and three or four computers. I sigh while I am sitting here thinking about it, but there’s no use in trying to deny the fact that I also have been caught up in the technology trap.

I have seriously thought sometimes about trying to simplify things, but I don’t think I know how anymore. I watched that movie “Lost” with Tom Hanks a few weeks ago, and I don’t think I want to live like that. You know the one where he is trapped on a deserted Island for so long that he starts talking to a soccer ball? Ohh…the lack of a dentist would kill me, but ol’ Tom survived it.

I guess there’s no turning back the hands of time. I wonder how many of us would go back even if we had the chance. I probably wouldn’t.

I wonder if there is anybody out there who has a list of the technological items that have come along since 1950. I have thought about trying to come up with one, but it would take more time then I have now to even think about starting. If there is one out there on the web that anyone knows about, make sure and let me know. Surely there is somebody out there who had all the spare time that all this wonderful technology has created for us to do such a list. That was the point in starting to invent all of it wasn’t it? To make life less complicated and less hard for we humans, and to give less time toiling away at menial tasks, like growing our own food, and raising our families, and more time to do the IMPORTANT things we want to do, like watching more TV, playing more video games, text messaging our friends on our Cell phones, going to one of the 9 billion fast food places in the country to eat our supper, pay our bills online, order our Christmas presents online, read our newspapers online, go to war with people we don’t like with smart bombs, and laser guns, because we have found out we hate each other more because we know more about each other, and what we know we have found we don’t like, and to drive our mega trillion automobiles around 1 mile to Wal-Mart 10 times a day putting so much Carbon Monoxide in the air that our planet is starting to warm up (so they say on TV anyway)

We take out other people’s body parts and put them in people to save their lives. They can transplant just about anything nowadays. I heard a few years ago they are working on a head transplant, so that’s why they got Old Ted William’s head frozen away out there somewhere in California waiting til’ they perfect that surgery. There are pacemakers, and stints. There are Dialysis machines and heart lung machines, and Cat Scans, and MRI’s…….

….and so on and so forth. Whew…we have come a long way baby, to get to where we are today.

I could go on, but there’s no use. You get the point by now.

Of course there is good connected with all of these things. Certainly, there is. I’m still alive because of some of this technology. I would never have gotten to do some of the amazing things I have done because of it. I have friends I would have never “spoken” to without this technology. I can keep in touch with my family, and that’s the most important thing I have gotten out of it. I guess it’s best to live with it, take the good and try to change the bad if you can. We were all created with a built in conscious (at least
Most of us were) so we know good from bad, and it’s up to us to try and change the things about our ‘New’ society that are bad.

We can write our Congressmen and Senators about the things that are wrong with our government, and how we feel about the Economy, and such. (Those would be some very long letters, but…it’s what we should do) If you see a program you don’t like on T.V., turn the channel. That’s the fastest way to get something done there. Recommend to your friends that they do the same thing. Vote next time there’s an election. Even in a GOOD voting year, most of the time fewer than 50% of registered voters vote! If they are not listening to the cards and letters…vote them out!

Quit making so many trips to Wal-Mart (That will be a hard one around my house) Cut down on the computer time, cut off the lights when you are not using them, read some instead of watching TV all the time. Spend time with your family….real time in person, not time “on line”

Question anything you aren’t sure about when it comes to technology:

Just because some Dr. wants to do something to you, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right or correct thing to do. I don’t really want them doing too much to me to tell you the truth, but I haven’t gotten on the stick and even written a living will, or a real will yet. Yes, that’s something I need to do, how about you?

Just because some salesperson at the computer store wants to sell you the “latest and greatest” PC doesn’t mean you really need it.

Do you really need that flat screen or HDTV? ( I decided I did…arrghhh.)

When you get your next car can you make sure it’s not a gas guzzler, or maybe even try and get a hybrid.

Ah well, I have rambled on long enough.

By the way, I wrote this directly onto the screen, instead of using a pen and paper. It would have taken too long otherwise.

Dang me. Dang me….outta’ take a rope and hang me…

I developed a strange habit as a VERY young child. I learned to read quite young. At 6 my Dad would buy me one comic book a week. Of course I would read it immediately, then…there was nothing new to read.

So, I read the same book again, and again. After many weeks I had many books to re-read. First the excitement of the new, then the comfort of the familiar. I developed favorites which would be read more often..friends so to speak. So, me and my boxes of comics, a familiar routine. Thus it continued all through my school years. I would read a book I liked, and in my mind I would “schedule” it to be read again at some future point.

I was a voracious reader, tearing through books at a lighting pace. Many of them strange, books that rarely ever got checked out of the school library: Mika Waltari’ s “The Egyptian” read many times over. Michener’ s “Hawaii” And the classics too: “The Count of Monte Cristo” a dozen times. “Moby Dick” 4 times at least. I liked long books, and experienced a let down..a sad feeling when I finished them. “But I always can read them again” I thought. I have the time to revisit my friends.

Now, as I lay here pecking away I realize that I have made too many friends to be able to revisit them all again. Especially with the development of this blasted Social Media, which is addictive and sucks away huge portions of my time. However, I have some time now before I sleep to go back and visit. No more posts or games of hearts for me tonight…I think I will go visit an old friend of mine….

What matters?? Your family matters.

I often wonder how I managed to end up in the middle of so many wonderful people. Wife and daughter. Sons. Grandchildren. Brother. Niece. Nephew. All of them. Good people. Those they have chosen to love and share their lives with. Good people.

Lucky. Good Karma. Blessed if you want to say it. Doesn’t matter the adjective. The tag is immaterial.

I have wonderful memories with all of these, and more wonderful memories from those who are gone which bubble up when my tired memory is on slow simmer like it is today. Mom and Daddy. Grandparents.

On autopilot. With tired muscles and foggy brain. But with good memories.

So if you wonder what life is all about, you don’t have to climb Everest, or seek out a Yogi, or read Socrates and Marcus Aurelius or even the good book.

Just look around you. Close by. Your life is happening close by. It’s doesn’t have to be sought out like a mystery. Just has to be recognized and worked on. Cherished.

Reach out. Put down your phones. Touch. Talk. Feel. Live.

Do it.

You have only the day, today.

Regret is such an empty, hollow and dark tunnel. You don’t have to go there.

‘THESE DREAMS GO ONE WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES”

(with apologies to “Heart”)

Our brains are extremely complex organisms, which are still largely unexplored in many areas. One area that intrigues me is the subconscious or unconscious thought process which takes place when we sleep. I guess most people call it “dreaming” There are dreams, and then there are DREAMS. I think they take many different forms and possibilities.

I surely wish I could remember everything I had ever dreamed. Sort of like having a little “hard drive” built in to my brain where I could push the “save” button every time I start to go to sleep. I also wish that I could dream some of the things I WANT to dream about. I wish we could dictate to our brains the “script” of what we want to start out with in our dreams, and let them go forward from there. One thing I really wish I could dream about is running.

I have been exercising quite a lot lately. I started about 5 weeks ago and I have worked my way up to 45 minutes on the treadmill at 3.1 mph and an elevation of 1.0 I know that’s not much for most people, but for someone who’s had two heart attacks, 4 bypasses and one stent….it ain’t bad. I still have to be careful and not let my heart rate get above a certain point, so there is one treadmill that I always use which has a really good heart monitor. So, I’m walking pretty quickly but not running.

I would just love to be able to run across the country, sort of like Forrest Gump did. Running on and on and seeing things that I have never seen before. Taking the time to appreciate things which I have never appreciated before. Chances are slim of me ever running again in real life. Not for very long anyway.

I have started sleeping better since I have been exercising, but I used to lay awake for hours previously.

My wife and I always listen to music at night, and a few weeks ago as I was trying very hard to sleep, I began to actually see the musical notes in my mind. I was listening to Enya I think, and on all of the notes I saw silver and gold patterns in my head. The chords were like sunbursts and moon glow. The voice of the singers, which was angelic in nature, flowed through my mind like a deep blue river, rushing towards the ocean. No, I was NOT on anything! This was dreaming, and it was the strangest and most wonderful dreaming I can remember in quite a long, long time. I wasn’t deep asleep; I was just sort of in a land somewhere far enough away from reality for things to be ecstatically good. I am not sure that I will ever get a repeat of the “unreal” concert. I didn’t want to “wake up” I finally snapped out of that vision…even though I could have stayed in it for a long, long time.

On a very rare occasion, I dream of times past and of people who are now gone from this life. You would think this might be a more common type of dream. But, for me at least, it is very uncommon. I think maybe you have more and more of the dreams like this as you get older, because more of the people you have loved and known in your life start to leave. I dream of my Grandmother occasionally, most of the time in the kitchen cooking! I can still smell the biscuits cooking, and in the back of my mind wish I had gotten her to teach me how to make them! My mind yearns for a trip back. For just one more day, as Mitch Albom has so sweetly expressed in one of his books. One more day to say things that should have said, but which I always thought I would have time to say.

I used to help my Grandma sometimes and it was during this period of interaction that I learned a great deal about here philosophy of life. A lot of hard work mainly, but a lot of love for life too. When she had here 100th birthday, I asked her if she had it to go over again what one thing would she do or not do. She told me simply “Worry less, because worry never did change nothing!” It still doesn’t Grandma, it still doesn’t! Since Grandma died…Dad and Mom have gone on also, and occasionally I still see them in my dreams.

It’s just a shame that we can’t step into these kinds of dreams anytime we want to, and visit with our loved ones who are no longer with us. It’s also a shame that we don’t realize that some of the loved ones who are still with us now, may soon be a memory. We should tell THEM the things we need to, before it’s too late, and we can only visit them every once in a while in our dreams.

I really haven’t had any BAD dreams recently. Nothing which I would call a nightmare, or anything even resembling a bad dream. My granddaughter who is now a High School Junior, used to have them. Occasionally when she was little and would spend the night, my wife and I would wake up with her standing next to the bed: “I had a bad dreams…” she would say sleepily as she climbed into the solace and comfort of our bed. “It will be OK” I mumbled. And, I knew it would. Most of the dreams we have, we never remember, and I was pretty sure she would not remember her bad dreams by the time she woke up in the morning.

Last night I was awake until 1 am in the morning, and I was wishing so badly I could sleep. I sneakily turned my Kindle fire onto Netflix and pulled up “Forrest Gump” and fast forwarded to the point where he was running out and back across America. By the time he said “Just like that, my running days were over…” I nodded off slowly and slept dreamlessly through the night.

What I need most is sleep, but most nights it eludes me. If I get five uninterrupted hours of sleep in a night, I count myself lucky! Sleep dodges my grasp. I can more easily catch a grasshopper in an open field than to catch 40 good winks.

I cannot “turn my brain off” as my Momma used to say. The neurons fire and fire and fire. And worry creeps in and makes the situation harder. “Should I have done this..” “Should I have said this…” “Is so and so mad, are their feelings hurt?”

Aw dammit. Those are the kind of things my Grandmother and Mom would both say…and neither of them slept good either. I don’t remember my Granny ever sleeping over four hours in a night. She was up at the crack of dawn every day.

My Doctor asked me today, “Do you want something to help you to sleep?”

I said nosiree.

I take enough pills now to keep the pharmaceutical companies in the black.

I’ll just get what I get, and keep on thinking and thinking.

And nod off during the day if I get still for more than a minute or two.

I fear I may just be like Edgar Allen Poe: “Sleep, the little death…how I loathe it” he said

He must not have been able to turn his brain off either.

Note:  Read this at your own risk. Might make some mad.

As I walked around the neighborhood this morning, I noticed how very cloudy and humid it was.  I believe the weather forecast for today is for storms with some lightning.  I think that’s great.  I love lightning now.  I like to get out in it, out from under the deck and look up at the sky to see if I can see it and I point my camera phone up there and try to get a good photograph of a lightning bolt.  I really don’t care if I get hit by it, because if I do, then it’s just “my time” right?  I mean, it would be one searing moment of intense agony and pain, and it would be over.  Besides, it would only affect me personally in a physical manner.  I’d be the only one dead.  I know, it would probably affect the people who love me and care about me, but they’d get over it.  Besides, it’s my body and my life and I have the right to stand out in a lightning storm if I want to.  Maybe I’ll get a fantastic up close photo one of these days and it will have been worth it.  So, today…looking for that lightning!

That brings me to my other subject which I thought about yesterday, the dangerous car ride.  This was something I did back sometime in 1986-88.  I was working for Zee medical selling medical supplies and I had a big territory.  I was way out somewhere around Jasper Georgia one day near the end of the day and I realized I had to be home in less than an hour for something important to do with one of the kids.  I can’t remember what the activity was, just remember I needed to be home in 50 minutes and it was a little over an hour’s drive from where I was.  I said to God:  “Please protect me on this ride home, because I’m not slowing down for nothing!”  I took off and I passed ever car that was in my way that wasn’t going as fast as I needed to go.  It didn’t matter if it was on a curve, double yellow line, blind hill, whatever.  I passed everything.  I went at least 70 most of the way.  I made it home on time for the activity and I didn’t get in a wreck and get killed.  Did God protect me, or was it just my blind  stupid luck that got me there.

As I lay in bed that night, I couldn’t go to sleep.  I trembled in fear at what I had done.  I not only had endangered myself….but I had put multiple people who I didn’t even know in danger of dying because of my carelessness.  I could have been killed for sure…maybe run off the road in a one car crash.  I could also have run into a car with an entire family going 70 miles per hour and killed them all….and myself.  I endangered numerous lives that day….just because I needed to be somewhere at a certain time.  It was a selfish and crazy thing I did, which I have never, ever repeated since then.  Being careless with my own life was bad enough.  I had young kids who needed a father.  But, maybe killing some complete stranger and their entire family?

Do you see the difference??

Anyway, I’ll be looking for that rain today.

Is there any magic in this world? It appears to me, every time I take a close look, that everything which has comprised an advance in our civilization has come from the mind of man. (or woman)

Every invention, every work of art, every book and every discovery, has been made through an idea that came from the human mind. It doesn’t really matter where the inspiration originated. Pretty often we sell ourselves short on our accomplishments, and we really shouldn’t.

The positive things human beings have done are amazing.

The one thing we can’t seem to accomplish, is how to live with each other peacefully. Since it’s hard for human nature can to overcome that flaw, perhaps we should rely on human technology and ingenuity.

I believe somewhere out there someone has an idea that can bring us peace. Is it AI or maybe some kind of cream or ointment? Something like sunblock you rub on, but instead it’s “hateblock”.

Who knows? All I know is that mankind possesses the means for his total destruction many times over…worked on by many thousands of people, many hundreds of years.

There’s gotta be at least one person out there working on developing a technology for a non violent world. (I hope)

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.

I walked around town this morning since it was not too hot. I thought a lot while I walked. Forrest Gump said that’s what he did while he was running out and back across America. Thought about things.

I thought first about how lucky I am. I am luckier than 99% of the people in the world. I’ve never gone hungry or been homeless. I had good parents, I married a good woman and I have a good family. I’ve lived to almost 65 years now (thanks to modern medicine and some good heart surgeons) and most days have been good days. I’ve been free to read the books I wanted to read, and to get into my car and drive anywhere in the USA where I wanted to go. The creator of the Universe has given me the privilege and opportunity to live this physical life in this physical world, and the ability to experience all my human emotions. What a wondrous thing!

I thought about all of the bad things which have been taking place lately. My wife and I were discussing this just recently, and came to the conclusion that lack of respect for other people and their right to have their own opinions, lack of manners and politeness, and lack of love, are near the root cause of many of these bad things which are happening. Basic respect, which my parents taught me, and which I taught my children is sadly lacking nowadays. Respect for life, respect for beliefs, respect for different cultures, respect for personal space, respect for the opposite sex, respect for people’s property. On and on and on….

As Aretha Franklin sang: R-E-S-P-E-C-T!!

I have a problem with people idolizing people who have no respect for others. When it comes to something such as say…politics…I would vote for a respectful candidate who I didn’t necessarily agree with over a disrespectful person who I agreed with 100%. Yes, I am at that point. Respect and manners are that important to me now. As I have mentioned before, the scene from “Lonesome Dove” where Captain Call runs down the Scout who had just hit his young son with a whip and nearly beats the Scout to death, only being stopped from doing it by Gus throwing a rope around him. “I hate rude behavior in a man” he sputters to Gus “I won’t tolerate it”.

I guess that’s where we come in. We need to be intolerant of rude behavior, ranging from saying the “f” word in public at the local gym in front of a group of people including women, all the way to the ultimate rudeness of murdering someone in cold blood, to everything in between. We do…not…have to tolerate it. We do not have to tolerate the rude behavior of any religion which causes hurt or death to other people. We do not have to tolerate behavior from people who are supposed to protect us, which leads to the harm or death of other humans. I submit that we have essentially the same right as Captain Call to protest this rudeness albeit hopefully in a less violent manner.

I cannot cover all the things I thought about. I wish sometimes I had a little tape recorder in my head. I’ve forgotten some arguments over the years that would persuade Clarence Darrow. I’ve let some of the most winning of song lyrics float off through the air. I’ve solved the problems of the world many a night in my hot bath (due to the great circulation hot water causes to the brain) but they have slipped away on the fluffy towel as I dry off.

Anyway, I am thankful for this day and revel in the life it provides. I want to continue with it a while longer in order to help as many people as I can. I hope everyone has a great afternoon.