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I don’t know how many miles I have driven in an automobile over my working years. Starting back in 1978 up until 2011, a period of thirty three years, I have worked “out of town” from where I lived in good ol’ Trion, Georgia. I have worked and commuted to Rome, Calhoun, Dalton, LaFayette, and all over Northwest Georgia for five years during the 1980’s as a Sales Rep for a Medical/First Aid company. I have logged a lot of miles in a vehicle. I may try and figure out just how many one of these days when I have a lot more time to work it out.

During the 80’s while I was driving, I listened to WSB radio out of Atlanta most of the time. At least I had it on anyway. I laughed and cried at Ludlow Porch many days. I cussed Neal Boortz and agree with him…about 75-25…you can figure out in which direction. A lot of times I just rode with the radio turned off. I sang the lead to most of the Broadway musical records I had listened to so often as a kid. My “Impossible Dream” rendition from the “Man of La Mancha” is still ringing loudly somewhere in the hills near Jasper, Georgia. I went through every song I every knew and then started writing my own. Back then there was no way to record anything while you were driving, so if I got a good melody in my head I would have to hum it all day long until I got home to my guitar and cassette tape recorder. I know I lost a lot of hit songs due to the fact that I had to get out of the car and work in between bouts of creativity.

I preached many a great sermon back in those days…quoting from every bible verse I had every learned…which was a lot of them. None of them ever saw print or the light of day, but some of them were pretty good.

I taught classes on history and anthropology while I was driving. I had conversations with myself about the meaning of life. I never solved that one.

I imagined myself winning the World series with a last minute home run, or dropping a putt on the 18th of the Masters to win the tournament.

But many times I would just ride along looking at the mountain scenery and think. Just think about things.

I guess I was just a poor man’s Walter Mitty, really.

I once won an all expense paid trip to Athens Greece for Paula and I on a radio contest based on one of the many “question and answer” games that were going around in the early 80’s. I heard the question while I was driving down the road: “Who was Ms. Hungary in 1957” We had just played the game the night before, and I knew the answer was Zsa-Zsa Gabor, so I hurriedly pulled into a service station which had a pay phone (yes there were pay phones back then) and called into WSB. I got through, was the correct caller, and they put my name in the “pot” for the grand prize drawing the next week. As I was driving home the day of the drawing, I had WSB tuned in and when they actually called my name, I just about ran off the road. I had been kidding Paula about where we should go when we won (it was one of ten cities in Europe) so when I pulled into ANOTHER pay phone and called her, she thought I was being goofy. It took a lot of convincing, but she finally believed me. We chose Greece. It was our second choice to Vienna, Austria…but we couldn’t go there because the only time we had to go was in October, and everything there was booked up for Octoberfest. We had a great time in Greece though…

And so I drove on……through the 80’s and into the 90’s. Paula and I got a job at the same place, and for almost ten years we rode out and back together to Calhoun. It was a great era. We took our lunch breaks at the same hour and ate out in Calhoun at all the fast food joints there, many multiple times. We worked with a lot of cool, friendly and iconic people…and a few asses. We got paid decent, and the benefits were super.

We had an hour’s drive home in the afternoons to “cool down” from the day’s work. We did a lot of talking, and it kept us close. Thinking back now, the place we were working was a great place.

They were bought out by a bigger company in 1999, and I had to start commuting to a different place again. So, there was 12 more years of driving out and back. First to Rome again….then to Dalton, Lafayette and Calhoun in that order.

The last couple of years, the drives were late at night, ending at home after midnight most of the time. Mom and Dad were sick in those two years…dying. I remember the night before Daddy died I was at work in Calhoun and he called me. He was bad sick. I couldn’t get off early because the third shift supervisor wouldn’t come in to let me go. He was an ass. When I did get off, I drove the back road from Calhoun to LaFayette at 80 to 90 miles an hour. Dad was resting by then, and weak. He knew I was tired, so he told me to go home and rest. I stayed there until nearly 2 a.m., but then I relented and went home. My Dad was a tough old man. Many times in his life he had stared death down and come through it still breathing, all the way from World War II, through two heart attacks, heart bypass surgery, botched appendix surgery which left an infection which would have killed many people. So many times he had toughed it out. But I got a call about 7 a.m. the next morning from my Dad. He told me his chest was hurting and to come quickly. Then the phone fell out of his hand and hit the floor.

Of all the miles I had driven over the years, all the many thousands of mundane miles, the near miss days, the three coffee afternoons to stay awake…out of all of these miles, the twelve miles from my house to Lafayette were the longest I had ever driven. I went fast…but even then, I didn’t make it in time. My tough old man had left sometime while I was in transit. The top of his head was still warm when I touched him and said goodbye.

No matter how many times I go back over that drive…the hurried one the night before and the more hurried one the next morning, I can find no solace in anything I did. Guilt haunts and haunts, and keeps on haunting some more. People can tell you that you couldn’t have done anything more, but you’ll never believe them. I never do and never will.

Shoulda, coulda and woulda….you put them in the furnace just like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendego…and they just won’t burn….they’ll always come out right back at ya’.

I drove more miles after that. Seven more month’s worth of thirty miles over and thirty miles back, after midnight. My Mom faded away early in December that same year, but we were all at least there and surrounding her at the last. The anxiety, and the years of bad eating, and no exercise, and bad genetics caught up with me near Christmas of 2010 and my years of rolling up mileage came to a halt for a while. They cut me from Adam’s apple to belly button and put four new vessels in while a machine was pumping my blood. At one point in the first few days, I hurt so badly I thought about just letting go. But…my youngest son was in the room with me right then, and I didn’t want him to be a witness to it, so I decided I’d live.

I have made a come back over the past few years though. With Eli and Rue to care for, I moved back into the main stream of life a few steps at a time. Those babies and Paula brought me through the next year after my heart surgery, although my memory is sure spotty. They helped keep me busy and moving. It was a really good thing.

Now, for the last year or so, I’ve been riding up to Woodstation and picking up baby Evie and bringing her back down. I started to listen to NPR again, and many times playing tunes that Evie likes. And I think. I think a lot. Sort of like Forrest Gump did when he was running. But, unlike Forrest, I’ve started walking and doing a lot of thinking, instead of running. While I’m walking…and driving I notice the beauty around me.

The sunrises and sunsets, the animals, the kids and grandchildren, all sorts of buildings, and beaches, clouds and rocks….pretty much everything.

If you’ve seen my posts, you have seen the pictures! I take them to freeze that one moment in time for eternity. For others to see the things I consider beautiful and worthwhile. I write of things I hope will inspire, and I am trying oh so hard to steer clear of turmoil….although nobody’s perfect.

I’ve made a physical, and mostly emotional return to living.

I appreciate my life. Do you appreciate yours?

I know one day my walking….and driving days will be over, and while I have some regrets, the joys I have, and have had far outweigh the sorrows. The people I share my life with, who I call my family, give me purpose and love.

I am one of the lucky ones. Very lucky.

Call me blessed if you wish….I don’t care.

There is a pattern to all things. Nature loves a good workable pattern and will replicate it from gigantic down to microscopic. Take the “swirl” pattern. Look at the photos of galaxies taken by the Hubble telescope. Look at over head photos of hurricanes or cyclones, and know that this very same pattern goes down to tiny grains of sand. Even to microscopic creatures. Is this repeating pattern an accident? I think it’s no more an accident than the similar way a human brain and a computer function. Patterns.

We all humans are formed in the same pattern. Our DNA is 99.5% the same from person to person, no matter what you are. It’s that half a percent which accounts for making us all “individuals” Even so, the genetic differences we display do not account for the conflicts between us. That is all cultural, or learned behavior. It is not part of the pattern.

If we could only focus on our very close similarities, and learn to reject what our cultures teach us about our half a percent differences, we could stop wasting so much of our precious time here on Earth on war, hatred, and killing.

We are all part of the pattern of the Universe. We need to use our brains to reach out beyond what we know here. We might like what we find.

We have one of those Amazon “Alexas” and from time to time I’ll holler “Alexa play songs from: ” and then just choose an artist I want to hear and she’ll start playing the songs. I asked for songs by the group “Chicago” today while we were in the kitchen messing around. I’ve always loved them. In my list of favorite groups they would have to be #2 behind the Beatles. I’ve always loved their songs…especially with the brass in the background. It always makes me a little sad at the same time too, though. Hearing that “band sound” always reminds me of a lost opportunity to do something I really wanted to do.

I always loved music when I was a kid. I sang, and played guitar and I could “pick up” tunes and play the chords for them and sing just “by ear” I never learned to read music though….still haven’t.

In the seventh grade in school, in the spring time was the time for band tryouts for the next year. I always wanted to be in the band. I’d looked forward to it for several years leading up to that time when I might be able to join. I did all the sign up stuff and tryouts on the instruments and was told that my instrument would be…..a clarinet. A clarinet? That was a surprise, as I’d always supposed I’d be a trumpet guy, and I liked the fact that there were only three buttons on top of a trumpet. The damn clarinet looked like something from outer space with all of those buttons and places to press down.

I gave it a try though, and I finally got some sound out of it. So, we then went on to have some practices. They put a sheet of simple music in front of me, and after going over what it meant a couple of times, we had to try and play. I couldn’t discern heads or tails out of that sheet of music with all of it’s notes and squiggles and dots. Other people didn’t seem to be having as much trouble as I was having, so I figured it was me. I was such a dummy I couldn’t learn to read music. I was deficient.

I followed along for a couple of weeks by ear. If I heard it once or twice through I could replicate the melody pretty closely. I wanted to ask about the music though. I wanted to get somebody to teach me how to understand it…how to “read” the music. I was too embarrassed to ask the band director though. I got increasingly frustrated as we got new music. Finally, a few days before school was out, I went to the office and dropped out of the band.

In hindsight, I wish I had asked for help, and if not I wish I had stuck with it even without asking. I think I could have “faked it” good enough to stay in the band, because once I learn a tune…I don’t forget it. Maybe if I had stayed until band camp the next year, they would have stuck me on the bass drum…cause I was a big guy. Maybe if the band director had just a little more perception about what was going on with me. I supposed it wasn’t meant to be though. At least I got to try. My poor Paula wanted to play in the band at her school in Maryland, but didn’t know what to do to sign up. They had nobody there to even ask them if they wanted to play…no adviser or teacher to guide them in how to sign up for band. She was too shy to ask around and find out.

So as I listen to the brass play in the background on “Saturday in the Park” I wonder what might have been if I’d been a little more assertive, and if someone had been there to tell my wife, “this is how you sign up for band” Maybe we’d have ended up in an orchestra or something!

We lived band careers vicariously through all of our children and our grandchildren, I suppose…..but it would have been nice to have been a “part” of something during my High School years. I never was….

I guess there are advantages to being a “lone wolf” too……. I’m not sure exactly what they are yet though.

“To err is human, to forgive is divine” so says poet Alexander Pope. Now this line was from 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.

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.

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.

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.