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It’s blustery, gray and quite cold this morning, so I guess my walking will have to wait until this afternoon. I’m somewhat tired anyway, after a night of vivid dreams, some disturbing….some more docile and sweet.

I don’t claim to know much about the mind. In truth, I think I don’t know too much at all in reality. Our human knowledge is limited, and although we think we are constantly expanded it, I wonder if our expansion of said knowledge is in the wrong direction. For the most part, we are always looking outward with our research and development. I think we should be looking inward. After all, we do not even know what it is inside of us which leaves us at some point, and causes us to become inanimate objects instead of animate living things.

For sure, science has their own explanations, but for me they are incomplete. I just have this nagging and unexplainable feeling that we are missing something about life which is right there in front of our face, but which we cannot quite grasp, or quite explain.

Sometimes I even wonder if dreams are our actual reality, and what we live in our “waking” hours is something else entirely.

Silly isn’t it?

Well, it’s just a thought.

Hal 9000, the super computer, asks Dave in “2001: A Space Odyssey” right before he turns him off: “Will I dream”?? It’s an honest question.

I wonder if we will when we are turned off?

I dreamed a strange dream a few nights ago. Paula and I were in the “hereafter” so to speak. We were both young again, and we were in this huge empty house. Paula was sitting around playing the guitar and singing! “When did you learn to play and sing like that?” I asked. She replied, “Do you think I watched and listened to you for fifty years without learning something?” “I guess not” I said.

The house was huge and beautiful, but empty. I seemed to sense instinctively though, that it had once been full and joyful…and that it would be again one day.

It’s strange what our minds come up with in dreams.

During this time of the year we all see the beginnings, and the endings. The firsts and the lasts. The first Thanksgiving and Christmas for some little ones, and the last for some. Some perhaps expected, some unexpected. “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.”

I get emotionally caught up in this vortex of life we all have going on around us constantly, and often forget what I should be all about. I get sidetracked by the everyday humdrum racket of Social Media going’s on, and jump out there with stuff I should just keep “in my heart”. I gotta watch it.

There are firsts and lasts happening this year. There are holes in the fabric of Joy we naively weave around the holiday season left by those whose last, was last season. We fill those as best we can with those tiny, beautiful “firsts” who have come into our lives. We gotta do that. We also need to look around us this year very closely, and tell those around us that we love them. It’s easy for me in some cases, but a little harder in others, although it should not be. It should be unconditional. It’s my burden to bear that I cannot be as kind as I should be, that I cannot be as forgiving as I need to be. I thought about that very thing this morning while I was walking, but then ran off the track before the day had ended. Ah, the nature of humanity constantly wars against our need to be more loving. My fifth grade teacher used to punish us by making us write a particular sentence by longhand either 500 or 1000 times on paper, and turn it in to her. I need to write “I will be a better man” 1000 times by tomorrow and turn it in to God….Maybe then it would stick.

Having now rambled on far too long, I have said all of that to say this: love those around you this year. Be kind to them, and enjoy your time together. Most of us will be able to do that, but there are many out there for whom the holidays are a toil. Children get abused…cruelty runs rampant. If you find any way to help someone for whom the holidays are not a fun time, please do it.

As for me, I’m practicing more on my guitar starting tomorrow because in my dream of “heaven” Paula was playing and singing a lot better than me.

I hope that America can continue to be the wonderful, diverse, and unfettered country it has been in the past.

We have stood for personal liberty more than any country in the world. People can do things in America that would get you killed in some other parts of the world. Probably quite a few things actually.

It’s a quandary which I cannot quite get to balance out in my thinking. We stand for personal liberty here, but in some parts of the world the members of the groups we are allowing those personal liberties, are trying to impose a system which offers very little, if any, liberty.

How does that help us? I mean, I know we are the USA and we are supposed to be better than everyone else and all, but what is it getting us?

I saw a video of some of our Navy boys getting chased around and threatened in Turkey. I didn’t hear that those Turks got punished. Try chasing a bunch of Turkish Navy guys around in the U.S., and see where it gets you. There is no equity there.

I saw that they allowed a Muslim service in the National Cathedral, and I guess it had to be approved by the Episcopal Board who is over the Cathedral, and it was probably a good will gesture to reach out to American Muslims, and in some sense I applaud it. This is in Washington D.C. our capital city. And then I think that those Muslims could go to Mecca, but the Episcopalians never can. So, there’s no balance there.

I could go on, but my point is made. This is America, the land of Liberty. I have researched my genealogy and I don’t have any ancestors who are recent immigrants. I have several who fought in the Revolutionary War, and many who fought in the “Civil” War. I’m as American as you can get, unless one is a NA…and I have some of that blood line too. I don’t say that to elevate myself, because I am personally not much of anything. I say that because I want there to be a free America around for my descendants, and I fear the direction we unwittingly go sometimes. I am neither a Democratic or a Republican anymore. I am an American looking for someone good to lead this country. I don’t think any of the ones in Washington under either party name qualify.

What I think, from looking at this last election is that we have got to start demanding more from our so called representatives. We sent a sorry bunch, out of a sorry field of candidates. Now that they are there, they won’t do what they promised. Thomas Jefferson said that “the people should never fear the government, but that the government should fear the people” His words, not mine. Our government does not fear us because we go back to watching our TV shows and ball games two weeks after “the election” instead of raising hell about what we want them to do. Instead, they are going to argue about who has what power and how they use it.

I think they need to pass some laws. Do something even if it ain’t right, like my Daddy used to say. I don’t care if I personally disagree with every last thing they do…but just do…something…that at least makes somebody happy. If it turns out to be a bad idea, history has proven that anything done can be undone.

I’ve noticed a lot of folks are doing the daily thanks in November for the good things in their lives. I think it’s a really good thing, and I wanted to take a chance to give thanks for the wonderful things which I have experienced in my life. I haven’t been doing it daily, so this is my “one time” thing.

I’m very thankful for my family…my wife, children, grandchildren. My Mom and Dad, my brother. (And all of my other loved ones who are connected to the ones I have just named. I could name them all, but they know who they are! ) I believe my one major goal in life, starting way back when I was a teenager, was to have a family and to do the very best I could to be a good Father. I could have chosen baseball, or golf, or music, or a career of some other sort to be my main life goal…but I had a different scenario in mind. I am thankful for being able to experience so many fulfilling things through my wonderful, supportive family.

I give thanks, or course, for all of the other things most everyone else does. Life and a chance to live it. Living in a great country, where we at least still have the freedom to come and go as we like and to do many things people in other countries can’t do. Thankful that folks can still go to Church and worship where they want, when they want. Thankful for modern medicine, it saved my life. Thankful for advances in technology, which allows me to communicate with you! Thankful for so, so many little things: running water, books, refrigeration, friends, classmates, prescriptions, underwear, automobiles, you name it, and I’m probably thankful for it.

I am thankful for music and the influence it has had on my life. I haven’t been a “commercial” success like I thought I wanted to be, but I have enjoyed the love of music just for the sake of its beauty and the satisfaction it gives me to “make” it and to listen to it. Thankful for guitars too!

I am thankful for growing up in the small town of Trion, Georgia. I am so thankful that I went to school with the people who were my classmates. That small group are like brothers and sisters to me. All of us went through so many things together. Butt whooping’s, schoolyard fights, proms, dances, football season, band, term papers, tests, Ms. Roberts, Mr. West, playing basketball in the old gym, eating at the “Y”, having plays in the old theatre, fishing in the river, sneaking out of class, loving each other, and hating each other (sometimes, but not for long) Living in a small town meant being able to walk from one side of it to the other without having to take food and water to survive. It meant spending the night at your best friend’s house so much that their parents threatened to claim you on their tax returns. It meant playing “pick up” baseball every day during the summer, and “choose up” football every day during the winter. It meant watching the river flood our beloved school to the point of uselessness. It meant the Skating rink, and the one theatre in the Country were all the places you had to go for “proper” entertainment. It meant knowing which guys had the most “bad ass” cars in town. I’m thankful I got to play baseball and then golf. I had two or three of the best coaches a boy could have in Dugan Peace, Jesse Emory, and J.W. Greenwood. J.W. taught me that it’s better to be lucky than good any day. Ha! It was good, and I am thankful for all of it.

I am thankful I got to go to college for five years, and although I didn’t finish, the knowledge I received has served me well. I went to both West Georgia College and the University of Georgia. I am thankful I met my future wife there, and very thankful she decided she wanted to spend time with me. (And still is!) I am not proud that I didn’t graduate. It’s been a thorn which I and nobody else, put in my side and has stayed there for almost 40 years now. But, I am thankful it still pricks me at times when I start something and I am tempted not to finish it. It has helped me finish a lot of things I would have not have, otherwise. It helped me to encourage all of my children to finish…which they all did pretty much on their own without much help from me at all!

I’m thankful I took Typing II in High School instead of Shop. I made a lot of money typing College papers for other people, and learned about as much from that as I did from my classes. It also helped tremendously my ability to edit for incorrect grammar and spelling. Makes it easy to write these epistles on Facebook too!

I am also thankful for some of the things which I have experienced in life, for which others may think to be a little odd. I experienced the death of my first child, and though it was heart wrenching, I am thankful for her, and the fact that she lived and she was ours…mine and Paula’s. She paved the way for our other children and a deeper appreciation of them for me, than I might have otherwise had. I looked at them many times and thought of her and was extremely thankful that I had three other chances to be a Father. (For as I have previously said…I think it’s my purpose in life) Her death prepared me at a very young age for the realities of life, that bad things happen and you must overcome them lest they overcome you. I am thankful that even after 43 years I can still sit here and have tears fill my eyes when I think of her. It proves to me I’m still human.

I am thankful I had some hard, manual labor jobs at the beginning of my working career. They made me determined to look for better ways to make a living. They (along with my wife) shook me out of a rut I was in and might have stayed in, and gave me impetus to go on to better things. I am thankful that I eventually found some very good people for whom I enjoyed working. I am thankful for the people I worked with, both good and bad. The good ones confirmed my philosophy that there ARE more good people than bad in this world, and the bad ones helped build my character to withstand and persevere against things which are wrong, and to have some ethics in life. I am thankful for the very hard and nerve wracking battles I had against unethical peers, who only cared for themselves and not others…who only cared for the numbers and not the people, and I am thankful that most of the time I won…though not always, and sometimes at a heavy cost.

I am thankful that I have had enough financial resources to live life at a “good” level, though never at a “super-secure” level. (I am not anywhere near rich…and never will be) It has taught me that envy is never a good quality. It has taught me that some of the things I coveted turned out to be unnecessary, and that the wealthiest people are not always the happiest. It has taught me that I should have paid better attention in “Economics 101” at West Georgia. It has taught me to be innovative in order to survive, and to try and help others who have even less. (And there are many, many of those out there, believe me…I feel blessed for what I have in comparison to a lot of people in this country and in this world)

Finally, I will end up by saying I am thankful that our Creator has allowed me to enjoy all these things and allows me to continue to be here and enjoy them. Thank you God.

Cracks in the Fabric of Life

When you get older, you develop cracks in your spiritual self. People you love grow up and “grow away” from you. Its a natural part of life, but it leaves cracks.

People that you love, both family and friends, die…and that leaves cracks. Never to hear those voices again. That’s the thing which gets me. If the eyes are the window to the soul, the voice is the soul’s connection to others. I miss the voices of my loved ones who are gone so much. I miss their touch.

Of course we can spackle some of the cracks with new relationships, new friends. Beautiful little grandchildren. New interests. And of course we can still cultivate the garden of love we have already growing with those who love us, and whom we love. Every garden needs a little fertilizer and water, and it’s up to all of us to provide it. If a move needs to be made to shore up a relationship, be the first one to make it. Don’t wait. If an apology is in order, don’t be the prideful one, be the humble one. Do it. If somebody needs help, do it without expecting anything in return. Do the hard things that need to be done to help, don’t just pick and choose the easy stuff.

Life is not about money, or fame, or being right all the time. Life is about relationships. Good relationships put fuel in your soul’s tank. Loving and being loved is what makes life worth living.

I saw some friends at our 50th reunion a couple of months ago. I went to school with these folks. Most of us for the entire 12 years. It reminded me that I originally learned how to care about other people who weren’t my family by being close to these classmates. It set me up mentally to prepare for life’s permanent relationships by relating to them. Plus, I still care very much for all of them. We don’t agree on every little thing about life’s philosophy, but heck, who does in this day and age?

In closing I’d just like to say I think my cracks…the empty spots which have been left by life’s inevitable ebb and flow have been pretty well filled, and will continue to be, as long as I keep an open heart to change. As long as I keep an open heart to them unconditionally.

Our Fathers, and some of our Mothers went off to World War II, and then came home and created us. The baby boomers.

Our parents had hopes and dreams that we, their precious children, could change the world to be a better place. That we could change the world to be a world with no more war. That we could change the world to be more accepting. That we could change the world to be a happier place. That we could enrich the world with the knowledge and science that comes with a college degree….one which most of them did not have a chance to get.

Most of our parents, being children of the depression, wanted more for us then they we’re able to have. So they gave things to us. Our Christmases were like Ralphie’s in “A Christmas Story”. We had our ball gloves and our baseball games. Football became a major force in America during our lifetimes. Hell, all sports did for that matter. We concentrated more on being good athletes, than we did being good citizens.

We were expected to get good grades in school, and to be polite. We did….we were.

We owed it to our Moms and Dads to succeed in our quest to change the world. It has been changed, but we have not changed it for the good.

Instead, we became the “me” generation. We became the “lost” generation. We became the generation who’s motto was “make love and not war”. We were the generation who protested the “Vietnam” war.

We created wonderful music. We wrote great books. But in the space of all this time between the “then” of our birth and the “now” of today, we became divided. We diverged in the late 60’s onto two separate paths. Some remained liberal children of the flower power movement , while others made a choice to move on to more conservative norms.

I don’t pretend to be able to reduce all the complicated reasons we are where we are now into a few paragraphs. It’s impossible. But the gist of what I am trying to say is that my generation was many. We were the majority of voters at one time in this country…and we failed. We failed to do all the things we were supposed to do for our Moms and dads.

We failed to heal. We failed to unite, and we failed to erase hatred and prejudice. Now it is too late for us. Our time to effect change has been lost like the long hair we used to wear.

All I can say is “Dad and Mom…I’m so damned sorry I failed you, I am so terribly, awfully sorry”. I did not realize that my civic duty was more important than “feeling good”. By the time I have realized it……..

There’s millions more out there, Baby Boomers….who owe their folks the same apology. We let the chance to change the world into a better place for our children and grandchildren, slip away like sand through the hourglass of our era.

Now we reap what we sow….or more appropriately, what we failed to sow. We deserve what we get for betraying the sacred mission with which our parents entrusted us.

Make the world a better place to live. Leave more than you found.

We seem to approach problems from the view of a spectator instead of a participant. We always wish “they” would do something to make “things” better. I think what we Americans, we humans should do is to become “doers and not talkers” as someone recently told me.

Maybe in this age, we could become more “getting up and doing physical good versus typing out stuff on social media” I could certainly do more in the real world, and less in this cyber world. Most of the time, what we do in the cyber world doesn’t amount to a cup of warm spit…as the old saying goes. After reading what the former president of Facebook said the other day about Facebook being designed to psychologically trap us all through positive reinforcement of our most basic human desires for recognition, I am bound and determined to spend less time on it. (but I am on it now, aren’t I?) I know that I probably will never totally give it up, because it is just too totally ingrained in our way of life now. I sometimes wish I could go back to 2008, and refuse to participate in it…but it’s too late. Whatever though.

We are what we are, and we do what we do. Most of us will never change, but if we cannot change, perhaps at least we can modify our behavior a little bit. We can put our phones down when we are having a meal with our families. We can go outside and play pitch with our kids, instead of scrolling through Facebook. We can do these little things and live a “normal” life if we just think about it consciously and consistently and make an effort.

It’s not only that though…it’s looking at life from inside the game. Playing with a passion for the good of others no matter the size of the “good” No good deed is to small to do. No good thing is too small to bother with. From petting your puppy to donating a kidney…one is a lesser good, and one is a major life altering event. The only difference is the scale, the magnitude. All small things add up. One of my good friends has a saying that “no good deed goes unpunished” and sometimes I feel that way myself. But, I continue to try. The day that we forget how to try and do good to others is the day we lose our humanity forever. God help us that this does not happen.

Sometimes all it costs us is a very small amount of our time, a word, or a simple encouragement. But we have to participate. We cannot just stand on the sidelines and watch.

In all things, whether great or small the worth of our entire existence is in the doing, the worthwhile doing, the doing of good. This is a follow up to the quote from John Wesley which I published the other day, and it’s so very true.

Remember it when you tip your server, or when you give your blood. Think about it when you deal with a family member or a complete stranger. Consider it before you speak, and most certainly before you act.

THANK YOU VETERANS

My Dad was always the consummate “veteran” After serving in the Navy from 1945-52 he developed a lot of “Navy” habits. I can remember many times of waking up in my very early grade school years to “Hit the deck, hit the deck” What is the deck, and why…do I want to hit it, I thought? It seemed rather strange back then, but now as I look back through nostalgic eyes, it was rather natural. Having only been out of the service for a few years back in those days, Dad still had the “Navy” in his blood. He just wanted me and my brother to experience some of the rigors of “boot camp” which he had gone through, so he was simply running his own “mini” version with us.

There were also those many, many “Navy” stories. The knockdown drag out fights with fellow ship mates over some trivial slight magnified by being in close quarters out on the Ocean for so long. Then there were the memories of the horrors of death and starvation in a post War Korea, and in China, with human beings literally freezing to death in the streets. The many slick trades of cigarettes for goods…like the set of painted porcelain dragon china which hung in Mom and Dad’s kitchen for so long. The earlier memories of the last days of World War II, first being a gunner’s mate on the ship’s huge guns, then moving on to the 115 degree boiler room and advancing in rank. I was regaled by all these tales more than once, and in retrospect I was enthralled by the listening. There were so many more of them, and they filled my childhood with wonder and awe at the things which went on in the big World.

Dad never lost his allegiance to his flag and country by one iota as he got old. Though he hated War, and told me that many times, he always respected the people who were serving their country. One of my favorite photos of him is of him standing there holding an American flag and looking wistfully out at the camera…perhaps thinking about those days that he fought for his country, watched some of his friends and ship mates die for their country, and came back home a changed man.

I want to thank all of you Veterans today for YOUR service. I too have always been against War, but never have I ever had anything but respect for the human beings who have to stare death and hardship directly in the eye in service to our country. Thank you, and Bless you.

To my Favorite Teacher.

I lay here and wonder how it has come about that I find myself quickly approaching the mid sixties. Sixty four just HAS to be the “new” forty. But, its unfortunately not.

I think back a half a century ago. Yes, dang it…that’s fifty years. Back to the Beatle’s first album. Back to early Vietnam. “Looking for more in 64′” by Jim Nesbitt. Landslide win for LBJ. Arnie wins the Masters and Nicklaus the British Open. I had started playing golf that summer and loved it, and lived it.

Gilligans Island and Mary Tyler Moore premiered on TV, and LBJ premiered the “Great Society” Mickey Mantle tore up the cowhide that Summer.

The Fall of 64 rolled around and thoughts of going back to school surfaced. I had not enjoyed my 8th grade year and wasn’t looking forward to my Freshman year. I had signed up for Journalism for that year. Mrs Wingfield was the teacher, and advisor for the “Bulldog Barker” She had been my 8th grade English teacher, and it was my best class that year. I had developed a rapport with her because I liked to write poetry, which was sort of kiss of death for a teenage boy back then, but I had received some encouragement from Mrs. Wingfield, and I had penned a lot of poems that Summer.

Mrs. Wingfield would read them, and offer advice and praise…which was a badly needed commodity for me at that time of my life. Somehow, the idea was hatched to start a literary publication that year for students interested in writing and art. The Sampler was born.

As it turned out, there was a LOT of interest and a lot of contributions. Wayne Greene, who was talented at everything, had a lot of illustrations in the Sampler, and had offered up one of his paintings as the prize for best poem in the Sampler. Mrs. Wingfield and Mrs. Royals would be the judges.

I knew I didn’t have a chance, but I turned in a lot of poems that year. I was working hard on an article for the “Barker” in May of that year, and Mrs. Wingfield brought in a copy of the “Sampler” hot of the presses and handed to me. I opened the front page to find that one of my poems had won first place! I got my picture in the Barker that week holding Wayne Greene’s abstract surrealist painting I had won. I kept that painting up until just this past year when it got water damaged.

Most of all, I have kept the memory of that moment. I read over all the poems in that very first Sampler many times, and there were some good ones in there. I am not sure how my simple four paragraph poem was the best, but the fact that Mrs. Jesse Wingfield had thought it was, bolstered my confidence in my abilities to a point which has stayed with me all my life….all my life. How many people could say they had been that crucial in the life of another person? But that was the effect that the gracious and dignified lady had in people.

Even for many years after, when I would visit the school and see her, Mrs Wingfield always had a smile and a “Hello Larry” which was just for me, her “favorite” student…one among hundreds of other favorites. She knew how much she meant to me, because I told her so in no uncertain terms. I’m glad I did.

I used to lay in bed when we lived on eighth street in Trion and listen for the freight trains to roll into the rail yard at the mill. We lived just up that steep hill from Riegel textile. Back then, I had a rocket arm and I could stand in my front yard and throw a rock almost to that railroad track.

I listened for the train because the movement of it as it came in and out with loads of cotton and coal, was comforting. Strange isn’t it, what we become used to? I could tell when the cars were being coupled and uncoupled, and whether the engineer was new or experienced by how loud the “clang” was when the cars hit together or pulled apart. A lot of times I would fall asleep dreaming of riding one of those trains out of town and right across America.

I dreamed of the things I would do: cross the Mississippi River, or maybe jump off at Memphis and get a job on a boat heading towards New Orleans. I’d take my guitar with me, and make some money singing in clubs. But then, maybe I’d ride those trains all the way to California, and go into acting….become a star. I loved music so maybe I should go to New York City and try out for Broadway. I knew all the old Broadway songs because I was able to afford those types of .33 rpm records at Redford’s five and dime. They were the cheapest ones. The new popular records were usually 3.99, while “My Fair Lady” and “Broadways Greatest Hits” were .99 cents. More music for the money, and besides, I could hear the hit songs on the radio.

I dreamed and schemed the world of a twelve year old boy, laying in my bed underneath that wide rollout window. The one I could crane my head back, and look up out of at the night sky and get a glimpse of the moon, and some stars, and the occasional plane flying overhead.

Those years on eighth street went by quickly. Looking back now, way too fast. From age twelve to seventeen I lay there and listened and dreamed.

I am reminded many mornings lately of those days because as I walk around the neighborhood in the early morning, the sound of the CSX going down the tracks parallel to highway 41, drifts up from downtown Ringgold. I can easily discern it off in the distance, and having walked the paths right next to where it runs, and having taken pictures of it, I know it’s the same type of train that I remember from my childhood.

My hope is, that somewhere downtown close to the tracks, there’s a twelve year old boy laying in his bed and listening as the train passes by, and dreaming of where it could take him. He may not get there. He may follow a totally different path from what he dreams, and be as happy as I am with where he ends up. But the dreaming will do him good, and give him some happy memories. And sometimes memories are worth more than gold.