Author: thegraymaniac

The old man staring back at me from my bathroom mirror tonight was intrigued by what he saw, but not surprised. A mere ghost of the one who stood in that same spot when we move here in 1987. An even more pale and fading shadow of the man who moved back to this city, this home town, in 1974.

I’ve tracked the steps I have walked since October of last year…over 600 miles. I shudder to even think of the miles I have stepped since 1974. The pounds I carried loading tractor trailer loads of mattresses by myself in the 100 degree heat of the summers of 80’s. Ten hour days building sewing and bagging them in the mid 80’s. On to better jobs from the late 80’s on, for the most part. Except the last 10 years of interminable long hours and super stress. I know we all have done the same though. I don’t claim to hold the patent on hard work and stress. Although it has taken it’s toll from what that old man in the mirror tells me. He’s always tired, and often grouchy. Ashamed. Always just on the razor edge of being somebody, but never quite cutting it. Now he’s wore out. Can’t stand the summer heat, with the ailments of old age and a worn out body his only personal legacy.

Wispy, baggy eyed, and faded as a 12 year old pair of Levi’s.

It’s always good to be able to still function in some capacity, however. But I’ve gotten my reminders lately about being too cavalier with my activities.

As long as I can put one foot in front of the other I’ll keep on going until I can’t get up one of these days. And in the meantime I’ll just quit looking in the mirror. And go to sleep and rest up for tomorrow.

It doesn’t matter which JC you listen to, both had great advice….regardless of whether or not it is “Love your neighbor as yourself” or “Always let you conscience be your guide”

There is that voice which is there all time in my head. He has been there ever since I can remember. He was the one who told me back in the fall of 1953 when I was almost 4 years old to ride my tricycle down the front steps on my house. A busted forehead and several stitches later the voice told me we would never, ever do that again.

He sings constantly to me, in any style. I can have a country song by Johnny Cash followed by Imagine Dragons singing “Demons” At times he scares me with my personal demons, but at other times he soothes me with sweet poetry. He will be with me until my last breath.

I have read a lot about this… “Inner voice” our internal narrator, our personal monologue which I think….at least from conversations which I have had with others… I think we all have going on constantly in our head. I know all about my guy. I know what to expect from him most of the time. He comes up with some weird things, some good things, and some thoughts which are verbalized which I would never consciously say to another human being. He says some very rude and vulgar things. He also comes up with some tender and moving soliloquies. I hear him just as if he were another person speaking to me. It is never like an invisible or hidden voice, but always speaking directly to me just as another person would. I don’t know how other people hear their inner selves, I really do not know if everyone even has an internal voice.

I’ve heard some people say that our internal voice comes from the way our parents and those around us speak to us as babies and early toddlers. I’m not so sure I accept that theory. I just cannot hear my parents or any other relatives I knew as a baby or child in my monologue. I also can’t accept that people like John Wayne Gacy , or Jeffrey Dahmer had normal inner voices which came from their early associations. I would have really, truly have hated to be inside their head, listening to what was being said. I think their voice must have been riddled with hallucinations, or nightmares.

On the opposite end of the spectrum I would have loved to have heard some of what Leonardo da Vinci, or Albert Einstein had to say to themselves…maybe. I can imagine their inner voices having a sort of discourse, bouncing ideas off of their own walls in order to make discoveries of new things. One cannot imagine what might be going on in the mind of the genius.

Jiminy Cricket would have called our inner voice our “conscience” In Zen, they would think of it as “Nen nen ju shin ki” which means something like “Thought following thought.” I personally think of it as my heart.

Whenever my inner voice speaks to me of any deep emotions it always comes from the heart. I have never had a headache from something bad happening, but always have the feeling come welling up from the center of my chest. My tears start in my heart.

When my voice tells me to be happy, I have never had my head spin. My joy starts in my heart, and radiates out into the rest of my body.

My inner voice comes from my heart and tells me the things no one else would or could tell me. I’d sure hate to lose him because he’s my oldest and closest companion.

When you travel through many years as a “denizen” of the Trade Days, flea markets and yard sales of the South, you get to know many people. Some of them are home towners who you have grown up with and who you have known all your life. Some of them are friends who you only meet and see at Trade day, or other “trading” places.

I found out today that one of my friends, who I’ve known for quite a number of years….I’d say at least 10 or 12….maybe more, died of a sudden heart attack about three weeks ago. He was 57 years old.

I knew his first name was Jerry, but otherwise I knew him as “the military guy” He had served thirty years in the military and was from Alabama. He and his friend came to Trade day on Tuesdays every week that it wasn’t raining. He was young looking to me…I’d had not guessed he was 57. He wasn’t overweight, was tanned and fit looking, had a neat black mustache. He knew more about military memorabilia than any man I ever met. If I had something which I wasn’t sure about in the military realm I could ask him about it, and he would probably know. He collected military items, but would never “rip me off” on anything. He bought quite a few things from me.

If it was something good, he would tell me “you need to do a little more research on this before you ask that price on it” which indicated my price was too low. He could have bought it, and I’d have never known, but he didn’t. He had integrity, which is getting to be a rare quality to find these days.

I’m glad his friend came by and told me about him today. He said that Jerry had never had any symptoms of heart trouble. It was quite sudden. I recall what Dr. Ware told me years ago that the first symptom some people have of heart disease is sudden death. I was lucky, I had pain.

It’s happened quite a bit over the years, that somebody just doesn’t show up anymore….and you always wonder what happened to them. You can ask around and sometimes find out what happened, but many times you never know. They just kind of fade away. I’m glad that in this case, at least I know.

As for the “military guy”, my friend, my deepest condolences to his family and friends. He was a good man, and they are hard to find.

Godspeed.

Did you see Jesus today? Was he the person in line in front of you at Wal-Mart who had to put some items back because they were short on money? Was he the person with the sign at the intersection which said “will work for food” who really just needed a couple of bucks? Was he the prisoner down at the jail who needed a visitor to bring him a Bible? Was he the sick person at the ER with no insurance who was having a heart attack, or the kid at home waiting on that Summer sack lunch because their stomach was growling. Did you see him in the Hispanic people wanting to learn English with nobody to teach them? Did you see him in the Meth addict with the rotten teeth who just doesn’t know how to get off the stuff, or in the waitress at the local breakfast joint who you just left two dollars when you could have left four. Did you see him in the mirror? It’s easy to see Jesus on Sunday in a Church full of other Christians, and give your 10% and be done with it, but maybe just a little harder on the other days of the week. I know I need to open my eyes a LOT more, because Jesus said however I treat them is the way he’s gonna treat me…..

Enjoy your time, live your life. Don’t be so concerned over what other people think, or what kind of philosophical differences you have with them. Where does it say that just because you disagree with someone that you must hate them? What kind of society have we become when “hate” becomes the buzzword on every days news? When hateful conversation is the norm on “Social” media. Not very social, eh?

We have become a culture of information overload, which has desensitized us to each other’s humanity. How human can a photo in the upper right hand corner of an electronic “page” be? When is the last time anyone in here wrote a letter to someone? I know some lovely people who still write, who still use language to communicate, and who still use touch to love others. How short of a time will it be before that all goes away?

Technology may be great, it is great, really. Some nights I just miss some of the humanity we have had to relinquish in order to move forward. I’m a dinosaur, and we all know what happened to them.

“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” Confucius

As I posted on another firend’s page, a wonderful person who was worried that they could not make a difference….one little candle lit in darkness can be seen for miles away. Now, that’s figurative and not literal. It just means that we all need to do what we can do. If it’s something little, something small…like giving a hungry man something to eat, or donating ten or twenty dollars to a worthy cause, then we need to do it. We need to do it for any person, regardless of who they are, the color of their skin, the job they do, the political views which they hold….anybody, we need to do what we can do, for anybody.

If we ever get in a position where we can do something large, like a Bill Gates, or a Warren Buffet…then we do something large. Change the lives of thousands if possible. Educate people, give them sources of water to drink and food to eat.

Confucius was right, because enough small good acts done on a regular basis eventually become something great. The mountain will be moved, but only if someone starts with the small stones.

And if you don’t care for Confucius then go and read Matthew 25:31-35, and think that information over.

We had a birthday party for Rue today at Kirsten’s house. It was a super nice little get together. I sit and look at the family, and I’m proud of who they are and how they act. I’m happy to be with them.

I will continue to take life one day at a time as long as I can get it. My life goals at this point are very few. Simple things become immense pleasures, and small kindnesses become extreme treasures.

I’ll take a super comfortable pair of socks. A good casserole (or some Au gratin potatoes).

A beautiful sunrise or sunset…is so appreciated, and I’ll be super excited if I get to see the total eclipse on August 21st this year. It’s supposed to be very, very good here.

The birds at the feeder, and the pesky squirrels. “Alexa” playing “Superstition” or “Stompy the Bear”

A good home grown tomato for a sandwich. (Thanks Guy Clark for that song)

Oh, there are things I need…but most can hopefully soon be taken care of. Some new glasses. A new tooth to replace the one I broke. Some pain relief. But I’ll get there on these few things, and a couple of other things over the next few months.

Tidy some things up. Get rid of some more useless stuff I don’t need that perhaps someone else does.

Climb down off soapboxes.

Get ready for Fall, but just one day at a time. One day and one week. Not too much further out. Not wishing any time away, no matter what that time may bring.

For whatever the future holds, it hasn’t gotten here yet. So I’ll try and patiently wait on it.

Have a good Sunday friends.

I just realized today that without music, my life would have been very bleak. I came to that conclusion as I was taking baby Evie to her Mommy.

I have my own songs on my phone, and the little kids seem to like them. Eli always wants me to play them when we are out riding together. “I want to hear you sing Papa” he says. And he listens and is soothed, and often slips off to sleep.

I played some other music for Evie first, and she didn’t pay much attention. When I put one of my songs on and started singing, she perked up and started going “ahh..ahh…ahh..” in a cadence that could only have been singing. Six months old tomorrow, and singing. Recognizing my voice, and realizing that it is something more than just talking. Something magical. All my children and grandchildren are the same way. If this was a gift I had even a small part in giving them, then my life has been worthwhile.

My Dad played the radio and sang along for me when I was a baby. I could sing “Jambalaya” when I was three. “Your Cheating Heart” and “Crazy” I helped my Grandpa lead singing at Church when I was four. Music has often been my salve, my joy, my love and my rescue from insanity. My perfect retreat from the world, even as I was in the midst of chaos. It is a complex mathematical equation reduced to auditory simplicity that almost any human can understand and enjoy.

My voice is going now. Years of use, medical and health problems have reduced it to a very unreliable instrument. Yet I am not angry or bitter. I have music in my mind and in my psyche every waking moment, and besides I am one of the best whistlers you have ever heard.

I don’t know what I would have done without music. Without it’s ability to transcend time through past songs, I could never remember certain periods of my life. The music pricks my consciousness, and transports me back, and I remember. The pleasant, the painful, the loving and the tears. Every new song I hear over the years melds itself to the events and people who are present in that time. It’s a biographical, chronological and auditory history built into my brain.

I hope if the day comes when I cannot ask for things I might want, that whoever is taking care of my final times will crank up the oldies from the sixties on a music machine…or perhaps by then the little ones will be old enough to come and sing me a tune. I’d even take “The Hot Dog song” I actually probably be pleased to hear it.

It’s the graveyard shift. You know. The middle of the night. 3:30 in the morning, and not a soul in sight, like it says in the Garth Brook’s song “The Thunder rolls.” Except…there are lots of souls in sight here. Lot’s of other Zombie like creatures crawling around over and under steaming a puffing machines, like human maggots, gnawing on food they can’t digest.

I tell you, this strange little work place sometimes seems like a depiction of Hell itself. I was standing at the top of a stairway that leads to another part of the building, and looked out over all these infernal machines, these machines of man. There were puffs of steam and water vapor coming from a thousand different places. Places that they are and are not supposed to be coming from. All of this fills the air with an eerie sense of unreality, and of dread.

All of the people look small and insignificant from this viewpoint, sort of like automatons, sentenced to do this hard work in this hot and desolate place forever, and forever. The top of the steps was about 160 degrees, since it’s near the ceiling where all of the hot air rises. I felt faint, like I was in a Stephen King nightmarescape and couldn’t get out. It was like that horrible dream we all have where you know you are awake and you want to move, but you can’t. You try to make a sound to wake yourself up from the terrible state, but you scream and it only comes out as a whimper.

Terrible.

More and more I am coming to believe that we are living our Hells here on Earth. I am often not sure of what comes hereafter. I wish I could say I was 100% sure. God, I wish it. How many people can say that? Those of you that can congratulations. I envy your faith. I just can’t say that yet. Does that mean I am not saved? What is saved?

I believe in all of what Jesus taught. I believe that existence is a product of creation….therefore I believe in a “creator”.

It’s just so hard in this current state to say I totally know what’s going to happen today or tomorrow, if I find myself no longer here.

I often wonder about some of the things the faithful believe. People who have had near death experiences tell about going to meet friends and family as they move “towards the light” I wonder though, is there any sense of time after we die? If, when we die we morph to immortality, then there would be no time, right? So therefore, our loved ones who are waiting there “beyond the light” for us in the great beyond would feel like they no more had even got there and had time to turn around when BOOM, there stands everyone else they ever loved following right along behind them. It blows my mind.

No sense of time in the hereafter so BANG, there everyone is! In the meantime, back here on Earth, we go on living the laws of Physics to the utmost, which means time passes normally for us. Gosh, it really makes me wonder about things when I think about stuff like that. My head starts to swim and clog up like a sewer. I can’t comprehend it at all.

I wish I could have a vision which would make all these things clear. After all, it’s predicted that young men will dream dreams, and old men will see visions about the things which are going to happen. I haven’t had my vision yet though. I am still waiting on it. I am waiting on it here tonight at 3:30 a.m. COME ON VISION!….well…that didn’t work well. Perhaps if I get up there in that 160 degree heat for a while longer? Nah….not going to happen.

Maybe tomorrow night, or perhaps tomorrow during the day when I am trying to sleep it will come. While the sun is shining it will all come to me in a flash, and I will understand the nature of the Universe!

I am NOT holding my breath though.