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“In all things be grateful.”
I find that is a very sensible philosophy, don’t you?

Be grateful for this life, be grateful for each moment because as soon as one ticks, the next one is upon you…and soon our allotted moments here have ended.

I certainly realize I’ve been a little more sensitive to those ticks of the clock lately. Who wouldn’t be!?

After all, when I think back really far….

I can remember a time without even a television. Without air conditioners. I remember a time when walking from my house on eighth street to the triangle shopping center was an everyday thing. I remember Coke in bottles, with the city where it was bottled on the bottom.

I remember using cloth diapers on my kids, and then rewashing them and using them again. I remember the train coming into town at midnight, bringing a load of coal to fire the boilers at the mill, every night…

I remember writing all my school work with a pencil and lined paper from a wire back notebook. I remember when almost everything we ate came from our garden, even in the winter…with canned soup mix, and frozen veggies.

I remember having only three pairs of jeans for school, and five shirts…and one pair of dress pants and a white shirt for Sunday. I remember spending all afternoon on some weekends listening to vinyl records on a little flip top record player.

I remember fishing in the river with a big old ball of earth worms for bait. I remember when the creek running into that river was a rainbow color of dyes…

I remember so much more. It’s funny how these memories always seem good, and happy…but that wasn’t always the case. When we old people long for those “good old days” our memory tends to be very selective.

Now, our good days are tomorrow…and the day after.

Be grateful for what you have. Be grateful for your life and the good day ahead of you.

Most days it is more than enough to see us through.

When I was a young man my beliefs were different, mainly because my knowledge was self limited. Even a college if something an instructor said didn’t match what I had in my head as being “right” I just never let it sink in.

I was a know it all, who had ingrained dogma pumped into me. My values were shaped by the low number of years I’d lived. I was not “sticking up for what was right”. I was play acting life as I knew it.

I credit my wife for beginning my change. She taught me that women should be respected, and that their opinions counted. She quickly let me know that marriage is a shared endeavor, not a case of “this is the woman’s job, and this is the mans. By the time my first son arrived, we’d been through a good “practice run” with my daughter and were pretty much out of the bad fighting stage. Over the years I have taken on a big part of her love for animals, and have relied on her to tell me when I’m generally totally wrong about things.

I went on in my working career to be a supervisor in QA, which was pretty much populated by women….except of course by the supervisor. I always treated everyone of them with respect, and deferred to their knowledge in many cases. For over twenty years I had women working for me in various jobs and never, ever had a complaint of a harassing nature. There are a couple of FB friends on here who worked with me during that time, who can back me up on that point. I treated women thee same as I did the occasional man who worked for me. I very much regret not trying to go above and beyond to get a higher wage for them, but I just went with the flow of what the company paid. Wages weren’t bad, but the men were paid more per hour in the areas in which they worked. I always made sure that they each got good Christmas presents from me, and I always made them free copies of the song demos I recorded.

There was one lady who was an inspector for me, who really liked country music. I had given her a full CD of songs while we were working together. I got a call from a man about five years after that business had been sold out to a large carpet company. “I’m ——-‘s husband,” He said “She had a stroke two years ago and can’t speak well. She wore out the CD you gave her and desperately wants another copy. I tracked you down through another old worker from the plant”.

I made another copy, and took it too her house in Armuchee. I spoke with her as best I could for an hour while I was there, about good old times at the plant, how hard the work was. She was almost paralyzed totally, but she thanked me very much for the CD. “You were the best boss we ever had” she said.

I wept as I drove home. The truth is, she’d been one of my least favorite workers. Always griping, but getting her work done. But she had liked me more than I had liked her. I never knew. I had always treated her the same, so she never knew either.

I never had much use for gay people when I was young. I thought they were all just perverts. That’s because I had never known one. When Paula and I moved back home, I started buying plants for our yard from these two guys who owned a nursery. I thought they were just business partners, but over the months I found they were also partners. This was still back in the mid seventies, so their relationship was still very frowned upon as a general thing. They didn’t have any friends, so we started inviting them over to our house for meals and card games. They loved playing with our daughter and our dog. They were intelligent, well spoken and well educated. They were out to bother nobody else, they just wanted to live their lives. We had the over for quite a few years, and we always had good times. One year, I noticed their relationship starting to crumble. Pressure was being applied by one of the guys family to quit the relationship. He gave in to his family, and the other partner moved back to Chattanooga. The one who stayed behind is an “old bachelor”

I never considered gay people to be abnormal or abominations anymore after that. I purposely opened myself up to knowing more gay and lesbian people, and the more of them I knew, the more I understood that they were as they were because it’s the way they were made. Many people still won’t agree with me. I don’t really care though. I do not see how we cannot be a society which is compassionate enough to just “live and let live”

Now we come to today.

Over the past several years I have had a Facebook friend who is transgender. I know that for sure now, although I have long suspected it. Over the past several months I have witnessed the hell he is having to go through….yes he, now she has had to go through to do something that could not help but be done. It was not a choice, but an imperative that had to be done in order that this individual could be complete. In order that she could be who she was born to be. I read as relationships crumbled, as extreme loss was suffered in those relationships. I cried as I thought, how I had been born with a brain wired to match my body, but that’s not always the case. That’s not always the case.

There was a man on America’s Got Talent who sang today. He was born in a female body, but always identified as a boy. He was tormented, bullied, beaten and abused. But I watched as he sang beautifully today on that show as a fully transitioned man and I openly wept. Oh, the things he has had to go through that I never had to. The things that my gay friends have suffered from family and peers that I’ve never had to experience. The travails of being a woman in a man’s world I have gotten a pass on because of my luck in chromosome placement.

Some will read this long piece, and think I’m dead wrong and disagree. Some will read, and as usual just won’t comment. Some will give it a like, some will just scroll on by as soon as they realize the subject matter. I don’t care, this is my opinion and mine alone. This the chronicle of my needed change, which didn’t come as soon as it should have. My shame along with a tiny bit of retribution. Take it however you want, or not at all.

After that song today, which my seven month old granddaughter stood and watched in rapt attention without so much as a twitch, it had to be written. It just had to.

There is a pattern:

When I was in school I took a pencil and paper with me every day. Right up until the day I graduated High School, and even my last year in college in 1974 it was pencil and paper or pen and paper. I never imagined any other way.

When the electronic age started, I was a Manager in a bedspread and blanket factory. I think I got my first computer in ’87 or ’88. Spreadsheets soon followed, along with emails and memo’s via the internet. I adapted to these things and I kept up. I had to, or have someone else take my job.

Back when I was still using pencil and paper in classes…often boring repetitive classes, I doodled. It was fun and it made the teacher think you were furiously taking notes. I did some great doodles that I wish I had kept. Some epic doodles. Most often I liked starting with a simply pattern and making it more and more complex as the doodle developed. I found patterns interesting, I found them fascinating. I began to believe there was something more to patterns than I knew, something more than I could even imagine.

I was never a good math student. I’ll admit I had a lot of trouble with Algebra. I really like Geometry however, and actually made B’s in that area. It seemed more pattern oriented to me. I took a course at Georgia in “Philosophy and Logic” which continued to focus my interest and belief in patterns. It was one of the most difficult courses I ever took. Try an advanced course in Logic sometime if you don’t believe me.

The more I look at our world, the more I see that patterns are in everything, from the macro photos of plants and insects that one of my Facebook friends so beautifully takes, to the posts which show galaxy after gorgeous galaxy. The more I study, the more I see repeated patterns. Similar patterns in nature. Similar patterns in all things, from the cells in our body, to our Universe.

There is a pattern.

There are patterns which were used to create all things.

There will be patterns which affect the future of all things.

Perhaps everything started off with a doodle somewhere by our creator.

Since patterns are repeated, perhaps at some point in the huge pool of time our existence will be repeated.

I am one that does not believe in an end to things. Call me crazy, a lot of people do, but that’s just the way I see it.

I am not sure about everything that is happening in this day and age of ever burgeoning progress….some days it actually scares me.

I will tell you that for certain.

At my age, a lot of the new technology is fascinating, but it’s like a double edged sword. I have lived through the birth of television….seeing Howdy Doody through a tiny black and white screen…all the way to being able to communicate with almost the entire world, and do almost anything comprehensible with my iPhone….but I have sacrificed my privacy, opened up the intimate details of my life and my private feelings in a way which never would have been possible in 1950. I have made available information now which anyone can access, which at many points in my life I would not have been willing to share.

I’m not always sure the trade off is worth it.

My spiritual self wants me to believe that the Universe is existential and beyond my comprehension, and created, but the scientist in me is in conflict with that theologian, and wants me to look at the physics of the way the Universe is run. Are they compatable, are they analagous?

The reader of the written word in me, the seeker of knowledge, wants to keep abreast of everything that’s going on in the world, but sometimes over analyzes or doesn’t understand the significance of what is being input and processed by my brain.

The realist in me knows that things can’t stay the same, but the dreamer wants things to stay like they are, or go back to the way they were!

The battle rages on within me every day, and some days spills out of my eyes…..

It’s pretty sad when it boils down to standing for Trade day. However, as trade day has become a culture over the years, a place of gathering and a place to pass some time with friends then perhaps it is not such a bad thing to stand for. I have passed many hours discussing everything from the mundanities of politics to the meaning of life at Trade day. I have made may friends and aquaintences there. The gospel is spread at Trade day, as well as the devil. There’s a man who gives away bibles, and a man who sells them. You see peoples treasures from years gone by. You see the things which people have bought at a high price that they didn’t need and they are selling it for a pittance. For centuries the centers of power in the world have been at markets. Maybe standing for Trade day is not such a bad thing after all.

I’ve been thinking about life and I’ve decided all things in our human culture can be defined by the two words above. Exclusive or Inclusive. Maybe really….all inclusive.

Think of humanity as one great big club. The club of humans. Now consider that the great big club is subdivided into a whole plethora of smaller clubs. All of those clubs will fall into one of the two categories I’ve listed above.

A person can belong to any number of subdivided clubs. Some are in many. Many are in some. There’s a lot of overlap. A lot of people belong to some of the same clubs, but not everyone belongs to them all. You play professionally baseball….exclusive club. Certainly not all inclusive. Your a Catholic ? Exclusive club….not as much as professional baseball by any means, but still beholden to a particular set of rules. Not everyone can be a Catholic, not everyone can be on the San Francisco Giants.

Don’t think things work that way? Take any “club” you belong to and try to think of it outside those two categories. Where do you end up?

Is America exclusive or inclusive. Russia? China? What makes them the way they are? What makes any “club” the way they are? Are there any clubs besides the club of humanity that’s All Inclusive?

I hope that in the future, humanity can work more and more towards inclusiveness towards all. Not matter what our beliefs. We cannot, of course allow lawlessness or violent actions of one person against another, or one group of people against another, but if we love and become more inclusive, I believe most lawlessness and violence would stop. Most.

Somebody once said: “It’s one big old club, and you ain’t in it”. When you find yourself excluded for reasons you cannot control, it’s not a good feeling. There are not good outcomes when people feel that way. Let’s open our hearts and learn to include. Let’s add and multiply, instead of subtracting and dividing.

After all, who wants to spend eternity someplace with someone who wasn’t “in your club here?”

A busy day, the end of a busy week. We have been with all the “little” Grandbabies at different times this week. They are tiny tornadoes…but they are our babies. Eli, Rue, and Evie. I couldn’t love them more.

They remind me that once upon a time, my other grandchildren were also babies, but are growing up and out of our “sphere of influence” My first Jessica Brown is a beautiful young woman now, in faraway Huntsville most of the time, working hard on her new job. Auttie Bowers my Blondie, is a junior. Going to the prom tomorrow (praying for no storms) Tyler Holland is married and working hard on the road. I passed my 16 year old Chelsea Holland out playing tennis this afternoon with Max, and had to stop my walk and try to show off. Then there is my little teeny bopper Olivia Livy Brown who is getting prettier every day. I know I’m an embarrassment to them, but just can’t help it.

I raised my three children the best I could. There were hard times, financially and emotionally. I commuted to work out of town all my working years, and had less time for my kids than I wanted with them. I bet I have put in at least a million miles between 1978 and 2011…my “driving” years. I got to know Ludlow Porch, NPR, and Neal Boortz really well over the radio airwaves. I listened to more country music than a Nashville producer.

My wife was with the kids more when they were little. I know that her presence helped them tremendously. Their Grandparents were a big part of their life, especially my “larger than life” Daddy.

My kids are my friends now, although I am never beyond still giving “parental” advice and serving as a gravel hauler, furniture mover, fashion supplier, taxi service and much more…all very willingly albeit grumpily sometimes. There is nothing I wouldn’t do…well almost nothing, for them. They know it. My family has always come first.

Brings me back to the babies. The grandchildren of our “old” age. They will never remember Paula and I as anything other than the gray headed grandparents. Evie especially, and hopefully a brother or sister for her in a few years. Perhaps they will remember some wisps and whispers of our caring for them. And oh..how I do care for them….all of them, child and grandchild.

Many, many years ago I decided I would probably never have a profession as such, other than being Dad and Papa. I think it was the right choice.

I think tomorrow might be a good day to rest. Sunday is a traditional day for rest. I might even sleep in til 7 am if the storms don’t come rolling forth.

I remember my Grandmother Stewart was not a sleeper. If she slept five hours it was something. Many times when I stayed there Grandpa would still be snoring (I think he had sleep apnea) while Grandma was already up stirring around. Grandma made him wake up and start a fire during the winter though, and as soon as I would hear him clanking that old wood stove I would extricate myself from under the five quilts I was entangled in upstairs and come running down to the heater.

Grandma lived to be 100, so I guess she was the exception to the rule about needing plenty of sleep to live a long life. She never napped much either.

Grandma died in December 1999. I was supposed to be a pallbearer, but I’d had a heart attack and a stent just a month before she died so I couldn’t help carry her as I had done with Grandpa in 1993. They played such a large part in my childhood, but as I became an adult and had my own family my visits were infrequent. I think we all run into that pattern of life as we live it.

You regret the time you might have been able to spend with your family, much more when they are gone. I apologized to Grandma once for this, and she simply said “Don’t worry about it honey, I understand”

As I approach 71 I am beginning to also understand. We have what we have when we have it. Live it that day, that week, that month. There is time enough to love if we take it, because it does not take much time to show it in the present. A hug, a kiss, a word, a touch. An unexpected tenderness or an emotion expressed. It’s better done now than wishing it done later. Believe me, I know.

I’m afraid from where I sit, I really don’t know much about the Universe. I’ll freely admit it.

The Universe is big beyond my imagination. It boggles my mind to even try and contemplate it. I watched one of those fantasy mock ups which takes you from our planet out into the Universe. Everything keeps getting bigger and bigger, while Earth gets tinier and tinier. There’s a star out there, they say, which will hold a billion of our suns. A billion! Damn…that just blows my tiny fist size compilation of gray matter.

It’s hard for me to believe that human beings have books that we wrote which tell us all about how the universe came into being and why. How the Universe was created. Religions say these books are divinely inspired. Maybe so. I won’t step on anybody’s beliefs, I promise you that. I’m for people believe whatever they want to believe and me believing what I believe and let bygones be bygones, and live and let live. I’m very tolerant about most things. I can’t stand loud boom boxes, and could do without constantly barking dogs, but even with those I’ll let most the instances flow by like a river as long as they are not too extreme. I despise human actions which result in harm to other human beings.

Science has come a long way over the centuries and we have what I believe are some relatively (no pun intended) simple theories about what makes the Universe tick. We think they are pretty deep and informative, but I’m not really so sure about that. What we think we know might not even be close to right. We may be way wrong. Humans are smart in a human way, but perhaps in a Universal way we are still just babies.

There’s umpteen theories about what happens to us humans after we die. We place a huge amount of emphasis on those theories. I think I’ve read about most of them. I’ve read about some of them extensively.

I lay there at night sometimes and I think, and I puzzle and I worry and sometimes I pray and sometimes I don’t. I try my best every day to do what my conscious tells me is right, especially over the past 5 years or so. I try to take care of my grandchildren in a kind way, and I love them and my children and all of my family. That’s about the best I can do.

So…I’ll take what I get when my time comes.

I expect at the very least to have a long peaceful sleep.

To the night…sleep tight, all my loved ones and friends. Tomorrow we will find us a better day and maybe a better world. If not, let’s make the best of what we’ve got. Be kind to someone. Give if you can to those who have less than you. Hug and kiss your family. Love if you want to be loved.

And in your dreams, you may find solace…and occasionally perhaps a glimpse of wisdom. You may find true love, conflict and maybe betrayal. You may dream the idea that changes the world, a new paradigm for a new age….but then awake, and forget it all. Dream well this night…