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I was just looking at the calendar today, and I’ve glanced at my watch several times. Our two most reliable methods of “keeping up with time”.

Such a mystery, isn’t it? A minute of time does not seem like much, but try and hold your breath for that sixty seconds….then it becomes a long time.

Almost sixty six years is a long time, but it really doesn’t seem like much. It’s flown by like a 747 at top speed! Coast to coast in four hours!

I wonder how forever would feel?

A lot of our religions are rooted in the human beings need to live on and on, and the fear of the unknown that plagues our thoughts.

I wish I had the time back that I have spent fretting about the unknown. I’d take it back a second at a time, like the ticks on my watch. Or a week at a time, like on my calendar.

I’d take it a minute at a time, and maybe try to hold my breath!

Most of all, I’ll take it as long as it is given to me, and I’ll try my very best to be more grateful. And I’ll endeavor to stop fretting so much about that great unknown. However it ends up, I don’t think it will be a bad thing.

To Err is Human

“To err is human, to forgive is divine” so says poet Alexander Pope. Now this line from was a great big old huge poetical work of his that was LONG! There was another good one from this work too: “Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread” One more: “A little learning is a dangerous thing.”

Those three sayings have got to be in the top 100 of things people have said since 1701 (which is when Pope wrote them) they’ve pretty much become standards.

I’ve always thought that a little learning is a dangerous thing. Nowadays if you get on Facebook very often, you will see what I mean. As Forrest Gump said: “That’s about all I’ve got to say about that”

I know that I have “erred” pretty often in my life, and I have been forgiven. So somewhere out there are a lot of divine people running around. I’ve probably done a lot less forgiving than I should have. I’m trying to catch up, so give me time.

Finally, in this group of somewhat disparate quotes (all of these came from one LONG poem remember) is the one about fools rushing in where angels fear to tread. I’m not sure about where exactly it is that an Angel would fear to tread. Angels have been described as being pretty courageous. Fools on the other hand are…well…foolish. Maybe it means that people should plan ahead and not take risks, lest they get themselves into a “pickle” Wait a minute…that’s another one. Dang.

My conclusion here is, that after reading only about one third of Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” for a college English lit class I once took, I am now glad that the internet age has ushered in the ability to Google the things I only once dreamed of being able to learn. I’ve learned a lot over the past 10 years or so. Actually probably a lot more than I learned in college. I read, and read, and read, and research…and sometimes I still cannot tell satire from reality. As a matter of fact, it is getting a hell of a lot harder to do so. I guess a little learning IS a dangerous thing after all.

All the hate and the negativity we see and hear are like the swamp mud we have to crawl through to get to the sugary white sand at the ocean’s edge.

I lay here and think of ordinary things, like our two block walk to the festival last night with Eli and Rue. They both had on their sandals, and it was slow going …but…it was wonder time. I learned more about living life during that walk than I have in many single YEARS of my working career. What did I ever, ever do which was more important than those twenty minutes? I would conjecture….nothing. That was time which was more precious than gold. I find I have a lot of that lately….but never too much! I find far too often I appreciate it’s significance later instead of in the moment, much to my consternation.

And then I see people who are my contemporaries in this world, with whom I have had some issues during my life. I now feel that those differences meant very little, if anything at all in the larger scheme of things. I can shake their hands, or hug them and in all human honesty wish them well. I wish them good health and happiness. I can’t hold on to the past. Can you?

I find that my circle of priorities in caring, is beginning to grow smaller in its revolution. Things which used to seem SO important, now fall outside of my journey. And I know the orbit will continue to grow smaller and smaller still, as I age. More and more things will wane and become tinier in view, until one day I will retreat inside of myself.

My hope is that it will not be soon, but for all of us it will be too soon, no matter the date and time.

I watched those fireworks go off last night and I feel our lives are a parallel to them. We come into this world and light up the darkness, and interact with each other simultaneously like so many different rockets. We are different sounds and different colors and different levels of fury. We affect each other on so many different planes. But our time is short and we are soon just smoke and ash. What other’s will remember about us will be how pretty we were at our best and brightest.

What other’s will remember about us is if we cared, if we respected, if we loved, if we gave, if we listened, if we played, if we danced, if we sang, if we forgave, and if we looked with open eyed wonder at the priceless gifts surrounding us and said “thank you for this”

Thank you God for this. Thank you our creator for this. Thank our lucky stars for this.

As Peter Falk’s character “the Grandfather” told his grandson after he finished his reading of “The Princess Bride”, when the little boy asked if he would read it again he said: “As you wish”

Thank you for this. May all things be as you wish.

A Philosophy to Live By…

You tell your children “I will always love you, there is nothing you could ever do that would make me stop loving you.” You tell them this before they know what you are saying, and you keep telling them this for as long as you can, so that no matter how old they get they cannot remember a time you have not told them.

If you do this the world will become a better place.

You then tell your family. “You are my family, and nothing you can ever do will keep me from loving you.” You tell them this because they are your family, and because it is true.

If you do this, the world will become a brighter place.

You tell your friends: “You are my friend and I love you, and nothing you could ever do will be so bad I cannot forgive it”

If you do this, the world will become more serene.

You tell your enemies that you care greatly for your children and your family. You tell them there is nothing you would not do to protect them,….nothing. You tell them that it is in their best interest to become friends.

If you do this the world is given a chance to draw breath and think.

I hope if we do this the world has a slim chance to heal wounds that have been open and bleeding for as long as there have been people.

I think, and I think…next month I will be 67. Seems young still, but unless I’m an exception to the rule…and my own genealogical roots, time is as they say, not quite on my side anymore.

Yet I believe I am a lucky human. I believe I was born and grew up in the greatest age ever in human history. I don’t have a bunch of statistics, or studies to back me up. Just a gut feeling, a bunch of wonderful memories and nagging nip of nostalgia that sometimes bites like a Bulldog. Certainly too, that nostalgia becomes more and more intense as the years go by.

The first scions of the electronic age, we baby boomers…the first TV generation. Say what you will…that one invention and its multiple non stop related spin offs have had more effect on us, and continue to do so, than anything imaginable when our parents undertook to win World War II.

The fundamental functions of the entire world have changed so dramatically in my short but long lifetime. I don’t know what lies ahead in the next 67 years. I see so many changes taking place in technology, in culture, and in the geology and climate of our world. I know things will be vastly different 67 years from now. I have some young grandchildren who I hope will still be walking this earth to see what is here, and I hope they are able to be agents for change for the better in this world.

I swear that I will hope and pray those years will bring more and better things to my children and their children.. I understand completely that every generation holds a certain fondness for their “time” I know though, even if I were offered with absolute certainty another 67 to go with what I already have, I would have to say no…just give me a few more…give me what I need to go along gently with the rest of the generation into which I was placed…that’ll be plenty for me, because I have dang sure enjoyed being a tiny cog in that juggernaut of change. I have relished this life and everything which goes with it, and I still do every single day, and I still will every single day that I draw a breath.

I love all of you people. Take care.

September 4th is a hard day for Paula and I. This is the day 48 years ago when our first child died after only living two days. She was perfect when she was born, with a head full of dark hair and a beautiful little face.

When she got sick, I didn’t know what to do, or how to handle the situation.  I was still just a kid, short of 20 years old by a month and a half.

We visited her grave on Sunday and got to talking about her.  Paula had the thought… What if she had lived?  What if?

If she had lived, everything we are now as a family, and everything we know would be totally different. Totally.

It’s like the plot from so many different science fiction movies and television shows, where someone goes back into the past and changes an event. Someone dying. Someone getting married or even just getting sick.

Then, when they get back to the future, in their own time, things are so totally different that it’s beyond belief. It’s like the “butterfly” effect that everyone talks about.  That’s the theory where if a butterfly flaps its wing hard halfway around the world, it can call large scale changes eventually. It’s a little bit of a complex theory, but pertinent in this case. The “Chaos” theory.

The effects of our daughter living would have been tremendous.  Would we have had more children?  I’m sure we would, because we wanted a family

We certainly would have waited past 1972, when our wonderful daughter Kirsten was born though.  She would have never existed, because when we decided to have another child it would have been at another point in time. The child we would have made would have had a totally different genetic makeup.

Therefore, there would probably been no Kirsten and Stacy…no sweet little Rue, Livy or Jessy. It would have been a “different” family….perhaps anyway.  Stacy’s the same age as Karrie Lynn would have been…

Yes, I’m sure we would have had more children, but they wouldn’t have been Ted and Matt.

Would I have stayed in Athens and worked at Westinghouse, instead of moving to Trion and raising our family there?  Would we have moved to Idaho? Who knows what could have happened.

The changes would have been far reaching, but….if Karrie Lynn had lived we would have never known any differently . We would have loved her and raised her the best we could, along with whoever came along as brother or sister. We would have been just as happy, I’m sure, because it would have been what was meant to be.  We’d never have known what we’ve known now as our life.

What was meant to be…….happened as it happened though.

I would loved for our first child to have lived and had a life beyond two days, but as I said in a post I wrote a few months back, that two days was her life.  It was her entire life.

I love my family just as they are. None of us are perfect, and I’ve certainly made mistakes in some of the steps I’ve taken in life, but I would not change my life….not one iota of it. When I am gone, it will be as it was meant to be, and I want everyone know right now, I have loved my life and everyone in it.

I believe then I’ll see our first daughter again somehow, in some manner and that meeting will be joyous beyond description.

TRADE DAYS

Back in the early 70’s I moved back to Trion. It was 1974 to be exact. Kirsten was only two years old. Ted was still a couple of years on down the line and Matt wasn’t even thought about yet. I worked in the mill as a supervisor back then and those were the high water days of denim. We were working 7 days a week with only Christmas day off. It was grueling.

One of the things the denizens of the mill liked to do back then was trade knives. Yep, you heard me right. While we were watching the denim run through the sanforizers we would dicker and argue over knives, whose was the best, and if we would get a dollar or two boot for the one we wanted. Case was the big name maker, and the bone handled ones were the most sought after. I collected quite a few knives in my four years there.

Somewhere along about the late 70’s some guys got the idea to start congregating down at the Triangle shopping center to trade knives and some other stuff, and Trade Day in Chattooga country was born. It lasted there for a year or two and then when they didn’t want it there anymore, it moved down to it’s current spot halfway between Trion and Summerville. Jane owned it and then later on it was Jane and Larry.

Since those humble beginnings of “knife swapping” Trade Days and Flea markets have proliferated throughout America for the last nearly forty years. People in this country buy lots of stuff and then they end up having a lot of stuff they don’t need. You could also find some good bargains back in the “day” A lot of folks starting “specializing” in different kinds of things: knives, coins, jewelry, military, clothes, books, china, pottery, etc. and would have the “best of the best” in those areas of collection. You would learn who would have what, and would make a trip to see them every week on Tuesdays and Saturdays (around here, other places had/have theirs on different days) There was some good collectibles back then. I collected everything I think. Starting with the knives which I held onto for many years, then to baseball cards, and comic books, and hot wheels, marbles, and jewelry. I did a lot of trading and buying and some selling. I have met so many wonderful people over the years at Trade Day and other flea markets. I’ve become good friends with so many of them. It’s been a great hobby and pastime. I’ve had a very patient and wonderful wife, who has put up with a lot of “junk” coming and going over the years.

Over the past 5 years or so, the Trade Day and other flea markets have changed. The atmosphere is just not the same anymore….at least for me.

What you used to see years ago were local people coming down in their cars with their excess stuff in the trunk with maybe one table and just being there to get rid of things they didn’t want, or maybe the stuff that belonged to their folks or grandfolks that they didn’t need or want anymore. Nowadays pretty much all you see are the “pros” These are the dealers who come there every week, week after week, with pretty much either the same items, or the same items with a few new things thrown in. They have their five or six tables, their trucks and trailers. They have banners and flyers. Some of them travel the country, or at least regionally selling the same items.

Then you have the “storage wars” folks. These are the people who buy out storage buildings that the people who bought too much stuff back in the seventies and eighties have put it in, and then couldn’t pay their rent, or didn’t want to pay their rent. They bring big truckloads of everything imaginable in cardboard boxes, and lay it out on the ground and people go through it, hold something up and say “how much is this?” The guy who owns it shouts out a price and you either buy it, or put it back. Most of time I totally skip these guys as most of the “good” stuff has been pulled out by them before they come to the market and they sell “the good stuff” to high dollar collectors or scrap the gold and silver jewelry for cash. I just don’t like digging through those boxes. I’ve seen people’s entire lives, including their personal belongings, their family photos, their clothes and possessions, including their i.d., sold out down at Trade day. It’s sad.

Also, now there are the new “grocery wars” guys who buy the slightly out of date, or nearly out of date stuff, the excess stuff, and the returned stuff and bring huge truckloads of it to the market to sell out. I’ll admit, I get my coffee and some other stuff from these guys. Whey pay full retail, when you can get the stuff for pennies on the dollar? This is the place where I see a lot of retirees and people who work for minimum wage at the local burger joints or for Walmart. One of the ways these folks live is by “shopping” at the flea markets and Trade days…as they have evolved into something of a “super variety” store for the poor. (Along with the big Salvation Army Stores, and the Goodwill stores…which is where I buy most of my clothes and other things I really need for daily use)

All that being said, I still go on Tuesdays and Saturdays. I’ve picked up so much junk over the years that I need to get rid of that I got to! I’ll probably keep going until I can’t go anymore because it just sort of gets in the blood. It’s not the same as it used to be, but….what is?

When someone can convince you, through their words and actions and through the words and actions of others who they have manipulated or influenced, that you had something which belonged to you, but it was unfairly taken away by others who did not deserve to have it, it will anger you. Sometimes, depending on the length and power of the assault upon people’s sensibilities, and the playing on their raw emotions, the anger can be considerable.

Even if the thing that you thought you had, which was unrighteously taken from you by those who did not deserve to have it…never even really existed….you can be convinced it did, and that it was the most important thing you ever owned.

People can be convinced to fight and die for this figment of their imagination. They can be convinced to hate and despise those who are different from them because of this fictional ideal. Then they will stand back and really think, and will be unable to remember what it was they were convinced they lost.

They’ll still be angry though.

There’s a couple of places I know very well along the old Alabama highway. There’s the Waterville Baptist church parking lot, and then there’s a little gravel parking lot at the intersection of the old Alabama highway and Lafayette road.

The reason I know these places so well is because I often pull over at one of these two places, and let people who are “in a hurry” pass me by.

The people who crowd your tail.

The people who swing out in the left lane like they are going to pass you on a double yellow line, then slam on their brakes and swing back in right behind you when they see a logging truck coming straight at them.

They are the people who pass you on a blind curve going up a curvy mountain road.

Paula Neurauter Bowers and I had a little red sports car pass us like that once, when we were driving home from Athens back in our younger days. About two curves later he left the road, hit the mountain, and died in a flaming inferno. There was nothing we could do, so we just drove on to the next house and called the sheriff’s department.

It was something we hated to see. I can still see it in my mind’s eye even now over 40 years later. I wonder what that young man might have been, what he might have accomplished, if he just hadn’t been in such a hurry to get where he was going. And, he did get where he was going. I feel sorrow still, but never any guilt.

I was talking to my granddaughter Auttie Bowers just last night about not being in a hurry driving home from college on the weekends. I told her that getting somewhere five or ten seconds earlier is not worth risking your beautiful life over. And, it’s not.

I’ll admit, I’m not perfect. I’ve done my share of stupid things behind the wheel. Fate has just been kind to me, or maybe it was just luck. Therefore, over the years I have learned from experience not to do the stupid things anymore.

So, I’ll pull over if I have to in order to let someone pass. I did it just this morning. (Hello Waterville Baptist church!). I’ll slow down and let you by, even though I’m driving the speed limit. By doing this, I hope I have and might…potentially save someone’s life.

Sometimes there’s just no cure for stupid though, except for the one the young man in the red sports car found. There are things you just cannot prevent, even by being kind, or by sticking to the letter of the law. In those cases the people in a hurry will never get the chance to live long enough to attain the wisdom which comes with experience. You can feel sorrow, or even anger…but don’t feel guilt!

Drive carefully….everyone, really. I mean it.

Little sneakers. I have laced up and tied on many, many a pair on my kids and grandchildren. I have heard them coming down the hallway in my house running as fast as they could go. I look around the corner with joy to see the beautiful faces of the tiny lives inside those sneakers. All different colors and kinds. “Papa, will you tie my shoe?” I tie them every time and tightly hug the child inside them. My Dad taught me to hold them and say: “I’ll put this arm around you, and then this arm around you and SQUEEZE!”

Those tiny little sneakers.

Yesterday I saw a photo of a pair of sneakers on a toddler, and it broke my heart. A photo I will never forget. The little toddler was laying dead on a beach in Turkey. Then his little body was in the arms of a soldier, his little sneakers hanging over his arms.

There are not enough words, nor room to write the words about this sorrow. The photos of beheadings are trivial next to this.

We may think…well this is a world away. Maybe, but the world is getting smaller every day, and this is humanity we are speaking about.

I don’t want to see these photos again, but I cannot look away. Something must be done. I have to do something no matter how small. I’m checking to see what I can do.

Those little sneakers will haunt me if I don’t.