8 6 4 7
Friday, December 5, 2025
Friday, November 28, 2025
GOTTA HAVE FIRE
Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Most of my family (20 + or -) brought great food, we got to hang out for the afternoon and feel grateful, satiated and obliged to start shopping for Christmas. I celebrate just about any holiday even if I don’t identify with its reason for being. Thanksgiving is a no-brainer; granted there are millions of people in dire straits with little or nothing to celebrate. But if we get it right then it’s a time to share, even if it’s just a token meal at a homeless shelter. Gratitude is the feeling, an emotion that moves us to be thankful, to behave in a selfless way, for the greater good. In all my life I’ve never gone to bed hungry or not had a bed of my own. I suspect that if we made it a weekly celebration it would lose its magic, just another weekend. I have a family that forgives me my foolishness; how lucky can I be?
I like Christmas as well. It’s like Siamese twins, two joined stories and we get to choose the one we like best. One is an excuse to get righteous with traditional religion and many take that route. I prefer the childlike practice of exchanging gifts and even if we can’t make the world a peaceful place we can be at peace with those around us. “. . . Children laughing, people passing, Meeting smile after smile, and on every street corner You’ll hear; Silver Bells, Silver Bells, Soon it will be Christmas day.”
But the December holiday I do take seriously goes by practically unnoticed, four days before Christmas. Winter Solstice has been observed continuously, uninterrupted around the world longer than any other holiday in human history (think of it as a holiday). Ancient people noticed and kept track of the sun’s arc across the sky, measured the length of their shadow at high noon when the sun was straight up, high in the sky as it gets. Every year on the same day, the sun stopped sinking and started pushing its arc back up. On that day a person’s shadow at noon stopped getting longer and every day after measured a tiny bit shorter than the time before.
Imagine 20,000 or 30,000 years ago; our ancestors were just as smart as we are. They were very good at what they did (stay alive) they just didn’t know as much as we do. They knew as days got shorter and noon-shadows got longer that the cold winter season was coming. They had to move around, follow the animals to find food and keep warm as best they could. Times were difficult and life was a struggle, almost enough to give up, lie down and die in their sleep. But they didn’t give up. After thousands of years of watching the arc of the sun and counting days, they knew when their shadows stopped getting longer and the sun’s arc stopped dropping in the southern sky that spring and summer would follow. It was like a promise; “It’s going to be harsh and bitter cold but the sun is coming back and spring will follow, bring new plants and long, warm days so don’t give up.”
For all these thousands of years people have been very good at counting the days, knowing when that shadow will stop getting longer and it hasn’t failed in all of those centuries. It will be harsh and bitter cold but the sun is coming back. I can celebrate that wisdom and perseverance and I do. On December 21 as the sun is setting I build a fire for myself and sometimes a few friends (you gotta have a fire) and welcome the longest dark-night of the year. I listen to music, songs about sunshine and day light, dance around the patio, tell stories and put more wood in the fire. Then we raise a shot of peach brandy to the sun’s return and chase it with milk chocolate Hershey Kiss. Sometimes we repeat that toast several times. After we’ve sung and danced and it’s really dark, only glowing coals left from the fire, we go inside and eat chili.
All I can do is fantasize about those paleolithic people but I’ve done the math and there is; there has to be a continuous, unbroken, genetic linkage between us. I don’t know how special we really are but whether it’s real or just self-ingratiating I feel gratitude and do something physical in their memory, the ones who did the heavy lifting so I can sip brandy and sleep in my own bed.
I like Christmas as well. It’s like Siamese twins, two joined stories and we get to choose the one we like best. One is an excuse to get righteous with traditional religion and many take that route. I prefer the childlike practice of exchanging gifts and even if we can’t make the world a peaceful place we can be at peace with those around us. “. . . Children laughing, people passing, Meeting smile after smile, and on every street corner You’ll hear; Silver Bells, Silver Bells, Soon it will be Christmas day.”
But the December holiday I do take seriously goes by practically unnoticed, four days before Christmas. Winter Solstice has been observed continuously, uninterrupted around the world longer than any other holiday in human history (think of it as a holiday). Ancient people noticed and kept track of the sun’s arc across the sky, measured the length of their shadow at high noon when the sun was straight up, high in the sky as it gets. Every year on the same day, the sun stopped sinking and started pushing its arc back up. On that day a person’s shadow at noon stopped getting longer and every day after measured a tiny bit shorter than the time before.
Imagine 20,000 or 30,000 years ago; our ancestors were just as smart as we are. They were very good at what they did (stay alive) they just didn’t know as much as we do. They knew as days got shorter and noon-shadows got longer that the cold winter season was coming. They had to move around, follow the animals to find food and keep warm as best they could. Times were difficult and life was a struggle, almost enough to give up, lie down and die in their sleep. But they didn’t give up. After thousands of years of watching the arc of the sun and counting days, they knew when their shadows stopped getting longer and the sun’s arc stopped dropping in the southern sky that spring and summer would follow. It was like a promise; “It’s going to be harsh and bitter cold but the sun is coming back and spring will follow, bring new plants and long, warm days so don’t give up.”
For all these thousands of years people have been very good at counting the days, knowing when that shadow will stop getting longer and it hasn’t failed in all of those centuries. It will be harsh and bitter cold but the sun is coming back. I can celebrate that wisdom and perseverance and I do. On December 21 as the sun is setting I build a fire for myself and sometimes a few friends (you gotta have a fire) and welcome the longest dark-night of the year. I listen to music, songs about sunshine and day light, dance around the patio, tell stories and put more wood in the fire. Then we raise a shot of peach brandy to the sun’s return and chase it with milk chocolate Hershey Kiss. Sometimes we repeat that toast several times. After we’ve sung and danced and it’s really dark, only glowing coals left from the fire, we go inside and eat chili.
All I can do is fantasize about those paleolithic people but I’ve done the math and there is; there has to be a continuous, unbroken, genetic linkage between us. I don’t know how special we really are but whether it’s real or just self-ingratiating I feel gratitude and do something physical in their memory, the ones who did the heavy lifting so I can sip brandy and sleep in my own bed.
Tuesday, November 11, 2025
CAN'T LET IT GO
I ate the last of the fresh strawberries this morning after the other night’s hard frost (21 degrees) and I’m feeling the urge to rearrange furniture. My short sleeve shirts have all migrated on their hangers to the dark end of the closet but I don’t mind the frost and long sleeves feel good for a change, but I’ll miss the berries. I had a roadtrip planned for this week but either something unexpected happened or something expected didn’t happened and I’m parked in Missouri until December. My blood pressure has been hovering at the boundary for a decade and it finally crossed the line so I’ll be adding another pill to my morning upload. If I wanted to grumble there is plenty to whine about but we didn’t evolve to be happy, we evolved to overcome and survive. So if it’s true, that life is a bitch and then we die then she’s a wonderful bitch; and if the fear of dying is too much to bear then there is religion. It won’t save you but believing makes you feel better.
I spend a lot of time learning more of the Human backstory. It’s not easy getting your head around the truly big blocks of time. Life spans are so short and to realize that other Homo sapiens just like us have been walking the earth, generation after generation in an unbroken chain of life for more than 270,000 years; it’s difficult to process hundreds of thousands of years when we only get to experience 90 years if we’re lucky. But the story is so fantastic I can’t let it go.
Compared to how long it takes for humans to evolve, technology is advancing at the speed of light. When I was learning to use the telephone there were no reliable computers of any size, anywhere. A quarter century later the computer that guided Neil Armstrong’s crew safely to the moon and back had less power and less capacity than the smartphone in my pocket. So said; anthropology, the scientific study of Human origins and cultures from the beginnings to the present, it has been leap-frogging forward with that same, forward leaning technology.
Time for a disclaimer: Modern science as we know it is a relatively new discipline, less than 500 years old. Religion on the other hand can be traced back to its beginnings at least 70,000 years ago. Across that gap any questions about human origins and their purpose fell on priests, shamans and other holy men. Answers to difficult, complex questions required answers that were simple, easy to understand stories that were considered to be universal truths that would be true everywhere and forever. Within the last 500 years the science community has advanced knowledge with a process and discipline that has proven itself over and again. But that knowledge often comes slowly and with many dead-end possibilities that must be disproven before moving on. So what they got then was often either incomplete (emphasis on incomplete) or incorrect and the story likewise, too complicated for the layperson to understand. After all those centuries of faith based wannabe science, today we share the other truth. “This is what we’ve learned and have great confidence in but that can change. When we learn more and better we will tell the world and rewrite the book.” Anthropologists have been learning more and better in the past decades. What we believed when I was in college has been updated significantly due to better science and technology.
In the past few decades the difference has been better technology and more scientists working in the field. They are making new updates concerning longer windows of opportunity for different Human species to interact and how that translates with DNA analysis. After all, fossils that were buried for hundreds of thousands of years and examined in the 20th century are being reexamined and yield new and better data than with the technology from only 50 years ago. Point of interest: “Human” is a genus category and there was a time when there were more than one human genus coexisting on the planet. But we (Homo sapiens) are the only surviving Humans on the planet now. All of the other humans have gone extinct. So when we see the word ‘Human’ used we also need to determine whether it includes one of several closely related species or just us. It seems that Neanderthals were not only coexisting with both Homo sapiens (us) in Europe and another human species, Homo denisovan in South East Asia but interbreeding as well. We’ve known for a long time that every modern human except for those in subsaharan South Africa carry a small amount of Neanderthal DNA in our body cells. We knew that but the vast increase in exposure to other species in terms of range and overlapping changes the way we treat the data. Here I am hanging on a hook and I can’t let it go.
So I choose not to grumble, that this life is awesome even when it gets scary and even when it hurts. I’ll miss the fresh berries but I’ll make cookies. One thought in particular has humbled me for years. It goes like this: If I could trace my family lineage back from my mother to her mother to mother to mother all the way back to the dawn of civilization, about 10,000 years ago, I would consider that linkage as the path of my maternal grandmothers. The obvious question is, how many would there be? There is a certain amount of speculation but children matured sexually later than today’s children and lived shorter lives. So I speculate the average age for child bearing across the ages to be 20, for reasonable ease of calculating generations in a century. That would give us 5 generations per century times 10 for generations per thousand years, times another 10 for ten thousand years = 500 generations of grandmothers in my own personal, matriarchal lineage back to the dawn of civilization. Looking back I would have thought there be more than 500 grandmothers between the dawn of civilization and now but the numbers don’t lie. If it were possible you could get them all together in an auditorium and we could all share a meal together. What would I say to my 500th grandmother? I would certainly say “thank you”. She would have been born to a hunter-gatherer clan somewhere and moved continuously, following the food chain as seasons changed. She would have grown up, given birth to a daughter, lived and died but most of all her DNA would have been passed on to my 499th grandmother, and from her to #498, and and from her to #497 and I can’t let it go. If that chain of grandmothers across 10,000 years had been interrupted just once by a different grandfather then her daughter would have been a different person and my DNA would make me different, eve if just a tiny little bit and I can't let it go.
Buddhist teaching tells us; "Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.”
I spend a lot of time learning more of the Human backstory. It’s not easy getting your head around the truly big blocks of time. Life spans are so short and to realize that other Homo sapiens just like us have been walking the earth, generation after generation in an unbroken chain of life for more than 270,000 years; it’s difficult to process hundreds of thousands of years when we only get to experience 90 years if we’re lucky. But the story is so fantastic I can’t let it go.
Compared to how long it takes for humans to evolve, technology is advancing at the speed of light. When I was learning to use the telephone there were no reliable computers of any size, anywhere. A quarter century later the computer that guided Neil Armstrong’s crew safely to the moon and back had less power and less capacity than the smartphone in my pocket. So said; anthropology, the scientific study of Human origins and cultures from the beginnings to the present, it has been leap-frogging forward with that same, forward leaning technology.
Time for a disclaimer: Modern science as we know it is a relatively new discipline, less than 500 years old. Religion on the other hand can be traced back to its beginnings at least 70,000 years ago. Across that gap any questions about human origins and their purpose fell on priests, shamans and other holy men. Answers to difficult, complex questions required answers that were simple, easy to understand stories that were considered to be universal truths that would be true everywhere and forever. Within the last 500 years the science community has advanced knowledge with a process and discipline that has proven itself over and again. But that knowledge often comes slowly and with many dead-end possibilities that must be disproven before moving on. So what they got then was often either incomplete (emphasis on incomplete) or incorrect and the story likewise, too complicated for the layperson to understand. After all those centuries of faith based wannabe science, today we share the other truth. “This is what we’ve learned and have great confidence in but that can change. When we learn more and better we will tell the world and rewrite the book.” Anthropologists have been learning more and better in the past decades. What we believed when I was in college has been updated significantly due to better science and technology.
In the past few decades the difference has been better technology and more scientists working in the field. They are making new updates concerning longer windows of opportunity for different Human species to interact and how that translates with DNA analysis. After all, fossils that were buried for hundreds of thousands of years and examined in the 20th century are being reexamined and yield new and better data than with the technology from only 50 years ago. Point of interest: “Human” is a genus category and there was a time when there were more than one human genus coexisting on the planet. But we (Homo sapiens) are the only surviving Humans on the planet now. All of the other humans have gone extinct. So when we see the word ‘Human’ used we also need to determine whether it includes one of several closely related species or just us. It seems that Neanderthals were not only coexisting with both Homo sapiens (us) in Europe and another human species, Homo denisovan in South East Asia but interbreeding as well. We’ve known for a long time that every modern human except for those in subsaharan South Africa carry a small amount of Neanderthal DNA in our body cells. We knew that but the vast increase in exposure to other species in terms of range and overlapping changes the way we treat the data. Here I am hanging on a hook and I can’t let it go.
So I choose not to grumble, that this life is awesome even when it gets scary and even when it hurts. I’ll miss the fresh berries but I’ll make cookies. One thought in particular has humbled me for years. It goes like this: If I could trace my family lineage back from my mother to her mother to mother to mother all the way back to the dawn of civilization, about 10,000 years ago, I would consider that linkage as the path of my maternal grandmothers. The obvious question is, how many would there be? There is a certain amount of speculation but children matured sexually later than today’s children and lived shorter lives. So I speculate the average age for child bearing across the ages to be 20, for reasonable ease of calculating generations in a century. That would give us 5 generations per century times 10 for generations per thousand years, times another 10 for ten thousand years = 500 generations of grandmothers in my own personal, matriarchal lineage back to the dawn of civilization. Looking back I would have thought there be more than 500 grandmothers between the dawn of civilization and now but the numbers don’t lie. If it were possible you could get them all together in an auditorium and we could all share a meal together. What would I say to my 500th grandmother? I would certainly say “thank you”. She would have been born to a hunter-gatherer clan somewhere and moved continuously, following the food chain as seasons changed. She would have grown up, given birth to a daughter, lived and died but most of all her DNA would have been passed on to my 499th grandmother, and from her to #498, and and from her to #497 and I can’t let it go. If that chain of grandmothers across 10,000 years had been interrupted just once by a different grandfather then her daughter would have been a different person and my DNA would make me different, eve if just a tiny little bit and I can't let it go.
Buddhist teaching tells us; "Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.”
Saturday, November 1, 2025
RAMBLING A BIT
By definition I must identify as a professional photographer and artist as well. I take photographs, make frames and some of them I put together, show and sell. Most people like them but choose not to purchase because they don’t come cheap. I have difficulty putting a price on my art so I ask my artist friends to help me and none of them have ever suggested I am asking too much; just the contrary. “Why only $450, this should be $650; people who appreciate art are willing to pay.” But if making money was my purpose that would make my photographs the means to an end and in my case the art is the end. No matter how much they sell for or whose wall they hang on, my name is on the mat and the frame and that’s not nothing; sort of like my children who move away and take on a life of their own. I want them to hang on a wall where people can appreciate them.
By definition, ‘Science’ is the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world. The only credible, reliable system to that end begins with observation then experiment, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained. Those who make that study a way of life and lifelong profession would qualify as scientists. I am not a scientist. I made a career of teaching biology and a few turns at chemistry but at best that made me a facilitator for others at the start of their science journey.
Science is a disciplined process and as long as that discipline is observed, the product (knowledge or technology) is reliable. But historically the science of science only goes back 500 years at most. Civilization on the other hand has been moving its feet for from 9,000 to 11,000 years in different places at different times. They all sprang from agriculture (plants & animals), densely populated cities, specialized jobs that created social classes, armies to protect the cities and (upper class) rulers to enforce authority and maintain the system. Every civilization had/has its own particular spin but they all conform to these criteria. For a civilization to prosper and endure it must defend its territory (food producing lands) and or capture the same from others by means of war. Rulers could be cruel and indifferent to their subjects or kind and compassionate, it doesn’t matter as long as the system works.
Science has evolved and no nation/culture/civilization can compete without good science. It’s only been a few centuries but rulers keep a close reign on how science can benefit them and what science is discovering that can threaten their financial/political best interests. After World War 2 tobacco companies had the best laboratories, the best scientists but their science was tainted by either intimidation or extravagant salaries to bury evidence between smoking and cancer. Duke University in North Carolina is still heavily influenced by the tobacco culture. In the end, good science prevailed and smoking took a hit but nobody went to jail. Today those same companies have stopped overt advertising but still send subtle messages to minorities and children who are most likely to take up the habit.
I am rambling a bit, thinking through my fingers and onto the page but I’m moving to a point where I question the efficacy of intelligence and knowledge. When good science gives us bad news about climate change or harmful side effects from any profitable industry there is a reflex pushback. They attack institutions and individuals with the same strategy insurance company lawyers use against victims; here-say and fabricated testimony to create doubt and destroy any credibility of the victim, the evidence or their witnesses. Good science is predicated on a profound discipline that favors no one, nobody, only what is! Too bad there are science experts who can be bought and sold by unscrupulous players.
The host of the PBS NOVA series HUMAN is paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi. She observes that modern humans have not evolved to live and function in this modern world. Living in a small clan of hunter-gatherers was relatively simple. Their brains were as developed, no different than ours today but the demands of their culture were simple. That has changed but our brains have not. Our cultural pressures make us vulnerable to believing the unbelievable and conforming to the whims of charismatic leaders. That’s my interpretation, not a quote. Then there is Harvard Primatologist, Evolutionary Biologist Dr. Christine Webb who has written a book, The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism. I am eager to get the Kindle version so I can have my computer read it like a podcast. Then I can stop, go back, listen again to a paragraph or a page, make notes and move on as it serves me. It certainly addresses ideas about the efficacy of intelligence and knowledge that I had already considered.
The church I go to has a good number of artist members. Some sell their work and others not but this time of year we hang a show for members to display their work. I put two matted, framed photographs in the mix. They are good enough to sell and I could use the money but they are NFS. Money has a way of going away and that’s alright but I wouldn’t have those photographs anymore and I would miss them. They both came down off my bedroom wall, one on either side of my bed. In preparation for taking them down and into my truck I discovered a photograph (it wasn’t lost I just wasn’t sure exactly where it was) I took it back in 1993 with a little point and shoot with a good, fixed lens. It’s a close up of snow covered ice in a farm creek with a very small sycamore branch in the snow. Next to the seed pods on the twig actually, there were several turkey tracks. It doesn’t sound like much but it grows on you. I’m going to mat and frame it sometime before Christmas and give it to someone I love. I have lots of those around.
By definition, ‘Science’ is the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world. The only credible, reliable system to that end begins with observation then experiment, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained. Those who make that study a way of life and lifelong profession would qualify as scientists. I am not a scientist. I made a career of teaching biology and a few turns at chemistry but at best that made me a facilitator for others at the start of their science journey.
Science is a disciplined process and as long as that discipline is observed, the product (knowledge or technology) is reliable. But historically the science of science only goes back 500 years at most. Civilization on the other hand has been moving its feet for from 9,000 to 11,000 years in different places at different times. They all sprang from agriculture (plants & animals), densely populated cities, specialized jobs that created social classes, armies to protect the cities and (upper class) rulers to enforce authority and maintain the system. Every civilization had/has its own particular spin but they all conform to these criteria. For a civilization to prosper and endure it must defend its territory (food producing lands) and or capture the same from others by means of war. Rulers could be cruel and indifferent to their subjects or kind and compassionate, it doesn’t matter as long as the system works.
Science has evolved and no nation/culture/civilization can compete without good science. It’s only been a few centuries but rulers keep a close reign on how science can benefit them and what science is discovering that can threaten their financial/political best interests. After World War 2 tobacco companies had the best laboratories, the best scientists but their science was tainted by either intimidation or extravagant salaries to bury evidence between smoking and cancer. Duke University in North Carolina is still heavily influenced by the tobacco culture. In the end, good science prevailed and smoking took a hit but nobody went to jail. Today those same companies have stopped overt advertising but still send subtle messages to minorities and children who are most likely to take up the habit.
I am rambling a bit, thinking through my fingers and onto the page but I’m moving to a point where I question the efficacy of intelligence and knowledge. When good science gives us bad news about climate change or harmful side effects from any profitable industry there is a reflex pushback. They attack institutions and individuals with the same strategy insurance company lawyers use against victims; here-say and fabricated testimony to create doubt and destroy any credibility of the victim, the evidence or their witnesses. Good science is predicated on a profound discipline that favors no one, nobody, only what is! Too bad there are science experts who can be bought and sold by unscrupulous players.
The host of the PBS NOVA series HUMAN is paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi. She observes that modern humans have not evolved to live and function in this modern world. Living in a small clan of hunter-gatherers was relatively simple. Their brains were as developed, no different than ours today but the demands of their culture were simple. That has changed but our brains have not. Our cultural pressures make us vulnerable to believing the unbelievable and conforming to the whims of charismatic leaders. That’s my interpretation, not a quote. Then there is Harvard Primatologist, Evolutionary Biologist Dr. Christine Webb who has written a book, The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism. I am eager to get the Kindle version so I can have my computer read it like a podcast. Then I can stop, go back, listen again to a paragraph or a page, make notes and move on as it serves me. It certainly addresses ideas about the efficacy of intelligence and knowledge that I had already considered.
The church I go to has a good number of artist members. Some sell their work and others not but this time of year we hang a show for members to display their work. I put two matted, framed photographs in the mix. They are good enough to sell and I could use the money but they are NFS. Money has a way of going away and that’s alright but I wouldn’t have those photographs anymore and I would miss them. They both came down off my bedroom wall, one on either side of my bed. In preparation for taking them down and into my truck I discovered a photograph (it wasn’t lost I just wasn’t sure exactly where it was) I took it back in 1993 with a little point and shoot with a good, fixed lens. It’s a close up of snow covered ice in a farm creek with a very small sycamore branch in the snow. Next to the seed pods on the twig actually, there were several turkey tracks. It doesn’t sound like much but it grows on you. I’m going to mat and frame it sometime before Christmas and give it to someone I love. I have lots of those around.
Sunday, October 26, 2025
I AIN'T NO MONKEY
It occurs to me on a regular basis that well written lines from popular songs come to mind when they parallel the experience I am having. I don’t think I am unique in that way but then nobody I know brings it up in conversation either. I belong to a coffee group of 5 that meets twice a week and if you try to rank order us by education and accomplishment I would probably score lowest in the group. I don’t know if they would agree but then our agenda doesn’t seem to dip that deep into our collective experience. This morning while the conversation centered on their pet dogs and cats I was contemplating a Bob Dylan line from 1975 (Buckets Of Rain) that tells us, “Little red wagon, little red bike: I ain’t no monkey but I know what I like.” From the first to the last note the song is a profound statement on human nature. The 70’s were turbulent and Dylan’s creative, drug fueled imagination made him rich. By the end of the 70’s I had managed graduate school and made my leap into parenthood and a career in education. I missed out on the drugs and the riches but I was no monkey, I knew what I liked and life was good. But life has always been good, that’s the point.
Flash-Back to my upbringing and my mother’s nurture: She never missed a chance to remind me of my good fortune with this admonishment, “There but for the Grace of God go I.” Then she would draw me into that blessing with, “and you too.” In my life I have abandoned her religion but not her righteous compass. Certainly the world holds us responsible for what we’ve become but we didn’t get there by ourselves. What I took from that cautionary wisdom was that I may exercise some influence but I certainly do not control my own destiny, I don't believe that anybody sets out to be a failure and that no decision can be judged good or bad until after it has run its course. Her purpose was the virtue of humility and to that end she made her point. All I can do is to weigh and measure the moment and do my best. That would acknowledge thousands of strangers fingerprints that are all over everything I have ever done. Naturally I must treat my decisions as crucial to my fate but at the end of the day I default back to my mother’s humble disposition and to John Donne who wrote; No man is an island. Don’t ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
This morning at coffee none of us bothered to mention how fortunate we all are to have lived so long and so well. I felt the legacy of White Privilege, how without it the odds would have been overpowering that I would have never seen the inside of a university library. I can’t speak for my coffee-mates but likewise, I question they would have risen to their levels of professional achievement if they had been persons of color. It confirms the notion that the three most important decisions you will ever make are; choosing your parents, choosing the year and the location of your birth. One bad choice and consider how disappointing and dismal this life could have been.
On the way home from coffee I stopped at Trader Joe’s, a small but trendy grocery store where the parking lot is full of German cars and customers are amazingly free of tattoos. I don’t think people dress up to go to Trader Joe’s, that must be how they dress all the time. Neither do I know for sure if they ever think about White Privilege but for the most part they have all been immersed in it for a long time; not many Blacks or Tans pushing carts through the isles. Still, birds of a feather flock together and I seem to fit in. Maybe I am affluent (wealthy) after all; I don’t have to check the price before I decide to buy the shredded parmesan cheese or a bottle of Carmenere wine. Carmenere is a Chilean red wine that pops in the front of your mouth and sinus, unlike the traditional favorite Cabernet Sauvignon with heavy tannins that settle in the back of the mouth and throat. I like the Carmenere but not the Cabernet. Talking with the lady in charge of the wine department she sensed I knew more about wine than what color I was looking for. She agreed the Cab was overrated and my preference was spot on; not that I’m a wine snob just more like Dylan’s observation, “I’m no monkey but I know what I like”. Still, my 24 year-old pickup truck in the parking lot will never be mistaken for an expensive German car.
There is no virtue, none at all in being affluent (wealthy). It provides purchasing power but you can’t buy virtue. I shop at Trader Joe’s once or twice a month but I shop often at a Walmart Superstore. I shop there because I get more for less and I identify with young parents who have more kids than they can afford and with old invalids in self propelled wheel chairs. My mother did not waste words on me; there but for the Grace of random chance and good karma go I. That could be me or I could be one of them, either way. But you cannot ignore the obvious; Walmart is not Trader Joe’s. For those who think they deserve better than Walmart because they are affluent or educated I don’t think anybody deserves anything. You get what you get and live with it. Ironically these disposable, invisible people who struggle to survive, who love their children but cannot provide, who give up easily because nothing has ever worked and because bad habits are truly hard to break; I identify with them; it could have been me. Every time I fell I landed softly and every time I got back up someone gave me a second chance. Good fortune is unmerited benefit that cannot be anticipated and I’ve had my share.
If I were a practicing Christian I would default to the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus said, “He makes the sun rise on the evil and the good and he sends rain on the just and the unjust. . .' Some would say that good luck is simply the intersection of preparation and opportunity but that falls short of those thousands of stranger’s fingerprints all over everything you’ve ever done. Keep it simple, “Do unto others” and “fix what you fu*k up.”
Sing it again Bob:
I've been meek
And hard like an oak
I've seen pretty people disappear like smoke
Friends will arrive, friends will disappear
If you want me
Honey baby, I'll be here
Flash-Back to my upbringing and my mother’s nurture: She never missed a chance to remind me of my good fortune with this admonishment, “There but for the Grace of God go I.” Then she would draw me into that blessing with, “and you too.” In my life I have abandoned her religion but not her righteous compass. Certainly the world holds us responsible for what we’ve become but we didn’t get there by ourselves. What I took from that cautionary wisdom was that I may exercise some influence but I certainly do not control my own destiny, I don't believe that anybody sets out to be a failure and that no decision can be judged good or bad until after it has run its course. Her purpose was the virtue of humility and to that end she made her point. All I can do is to weigh and measure the moment and do my best. That would acknowledge thousands of strangers fingerprints that are all over everything I have ever done. Naturally I must treat my decisions as crucial to my fate but at the end of the day I default back to my mother’s humble disposition and to John Donne who wrote; No man is an island. Don’t ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
This morning at coffee none of us bothered to mention how fortunate we all are to have lived so long and so well. I felt the legacy of White Privilege, how without it the odds would have been overpowering that I would have never seen the inside of a university library. I can’t speak for my coffee-mates but likewise, I question they would have risen to their levels of professional achievement if they had been persons of color. It confirms the notion that the three most important decisions you will ever make are; choosing your parents, choosing the year and the location of your birth. One bad choice and consider how disappointing and dismal this life could have been.
On the way home from coffee I stopped at Trader Joe’s, a small but trendy grocery store where the parking lot is full of German cars and customers are amazingly free of tattoos. I don’t think people dress up to go to Trader Joe’s, that must be how they dress all the time. Neither do I know for sure if they ever think about White Privilege but for the most part they have all been immersed in it for a long time; not many Blacks or Tans pushing carts through the isles. Still, birds of a feather flock together and I seem to fit in. Maybe I am affluent (wealthy) after all; I don’t have to check the price before I decide to buy the shredded parmesan cheese or a bottle of Carmenere wine. Carmenere is a Chilean red wine that pops in the front of your mouth and sinus, unlike the traditional favorite Cabernet Sauvignon with heavy tannins that settle in the back of the mouth and throat. I like the Carmenere but not the Cabernet. Talking with the lady in charge of the wine department she sensed I knew more about wine than what color I was looking for. She agreed the Cab was overrated and my preference was spot on; not that I’m a wine snob just more like Dylan’s observation, “I’m no monkey but I know what I like”. Still, my 24 year-old pickup truck in the parking lot will never be mistaken for an expensive German car.
There is no virtue, none at all in being affluent (wealthy). It provides purchasing power but you can’t buy virtue. I shop at Trader Joe’s once or twice a month but I shop often at a Walmart Superstore. I shop there because I get more for less and I identify with young parents who have more kids than they can afford and with old invalids in self propelled wheel chairs. My mother did not waste words on me; there but for the Grace of random chance and good karma go I. That could be me or I could be one of them, either way. But you cannot ignore the obvious; Walmart is not Trader Joe’s. For those who think they deserve better than Walmart because they are affluent or educated I don’t think anybody deserves anything. You get what you get and live with it. Ironically these disposable, invisible people who struggle to survive, who love their children but cannot provide, who give up easily because nothing has ever worked and because bad habits are truly hard to break; I identify with them; it could have been me. Every time I fell I landed softly and every time I got back up someone gave me a second chance. Good fortune is unmerited benefit that cannot be anticipated and I’ve had my share.
If I were a practicing Christian I would default to the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus said, “He makes the sun rise on the evil and the good and he sends rain on the just and the unjust. . .' Some would say that good luck is simply the intersection of preparation and opportunity but that falls short of those thousands of stranger’s fingerprints all over everything you’ve ever done. Keep it simple, “Do unto others” and “fix what you fu*k up.”
Sing it again Bob:
I've been meek
And hard like an oak
I've seen pretty people disappear like smoke
Friends will arrive, friends will disappear
If you want me
Honey baby, I'll be here
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
UNSCHEDULED PAUSE
It has been several days now; Rover, my little red pickup wakes up in his garage now instead of a strange driveway or parking lot and I am back into that mode as well. My GPS remembers every address I program in and saves it to a (Recents) list with the most recent at the top. Since I have no reason to save the recent destinations across Kansas and Colorado I took the time to scroll down and select all of my frequent, local destinations which moves them back to the top. I keep thinking I will drive over to the Garmin store to see if there’s a way to delete those (once & done) locations but haven’t yet. When I punch in a new address the GPS is conveniently mounted where it’s easy to see but typing in the destination calls for left hand dexterity or stretching over the steering wheel. Having frequent local destinations on a list saves both time and the cumbersome corrections for so many spoiled key strikes.
Changing the subject; I like to think of my age in terms of experience rather than some linear expression. That would make me extremely experienced in many ways but not yet unbelievably experienced. I would have to grow that sensibility in a wider, deeper story than my present condition allows. Still, some reach that wider, deeper milestone in less time than others and who am I to say just where I fit in the moment.
I read a self-help book in the early 1980’s about achieving your goals. It used becoming a writer as an example. I had been keeping a journal for nearly 20 years at the time but I never identified as a writer. The book simply stated that all one needs to be a writer is a pencil and paper. That’s where you begin. Then you need to grow your skills in little steps; attract readers, improve language skills, get a typewriter, learn more about the world around you. The very last thing to do is think about hiring an agent.
I had already identified with Nobel Laureate Ellie Wiesel who wrote; “I write to understand as much as to be understood.” So I knew from the start that my goal was not to be published but to process my own ideas and feelings as I move along. But I did start with a pencil and a notebook. I learned my language by reading good writing. A computer with spellcheck accelerated my learning curve with spelling and grew my vocabulary. I have always been a storyteller, it ran in the family and it came easy. When fellow writers in my writer’s group encouraged me to publish I didn’t have to ponder anything. My writing has always been about process and making meaning, never for profit.
I am much better writing than trying to keep up in a challenging conversation. I am the classic introvert; the fundamental difference between extroverts and introverts is how they gain energy and connect the dots. The one is energized by outgoing social interaction and the external environment while the other draws from reflecting inward on their own experience and internal environment. So in spite of popular opinion, outgoing vs. reserved is not a choice but rather a natural predisposition. With writing I have all the time I need to reflect before I frame or reframe an idea and I need it. In conversation my family and friends have learned that an untimely, mid sentence pause is not unusual from me. Strangers may try to help me find the word I’m looking for as if I need their help but that never ends well.
This whole piece is a reflection and reframing of recent history as well as some rationale as to why I do like I do. It can be read as quickly as one’s eye can scan the page but it came together at my convenience, after several edits and rewrites. We can talk and I like that; so much more personal but don’t be put off by am unscheduled pause or me answering your question with a question of my own.
Changing the subject; I like to think of my age in terms of experience rather than some linear expression. That would make me extremely experienced in many ways but not yet unbelievably experienced. I would have to grow that sensibility in a wider, deeper story than my present condition allows. Still, some reach that wider, deeper milestone in less time than others and who am I to say just where I fit in the moment.
I read a self-help book in the early 1980’s about achieving your goals. It used becoming a writer as an example. I had been keeping a journal for nearly 20 years at the time but I never identified as a writer. The book simply stated that all one needs to be a writer is a pencil and paper. That’s where you begin. Then you need to grow your skills in little steps; attract readers, improve language skills, get a typewriter, learn more about the world around you. The very last thing to do is think about hiring an agent.
I had already identified with Nobel Laureate Ellie Wiesel who wrote; “I write to understand as much as to be understood.” So I knew from the start that my goal was not to be published but to process my own ideas and feelings as I move along. But I did start with a pencil and a notebook. I learned my language by reading good writing. A computer with spellcheck accelerated my learning curve with spelling and grew my vocabulary. I have always been a storyteller, it ran in the family and it came easy. When fellow writers in my writer’s group encouraged me to publish I didn’t have to ponder anything. My writing has always been about process and making meaning, never for profit.
I am much better writing than trying to keep up in a challenging conversation. I am the classic introvert; the fundamental difference between extroverts and introverts is how they gain energy and connect the dots. The one is energized by outgoing social interaction and the external environment while the other draws from reflecting inward on their own experience and internal environment. So in spite of popular opinion, outgoing vs. reserved is not a choice but rather a natural predisposition. With writing I have all the time I need to reflect before I frame or reframe an idea and I need it. In conversation my family and friends have learned that an untimely, mid sentence pause is not unusual from me. Strangers may try to help me find the word I’m looking for as if I need their help but that never ends well.
This whole piece is a reflection and reframing of recent history as well as some rationale as to why I do like I do. It can be read as quickly as one’s eye can scan the page but it came together at my convenience, after several edits and rewrites. We can talk and I like that; so much more personal but don’t be put off by am unscheduled pause or me answering your question with a question of my own.
Thursday, October 9, 2025
A TRAIN THING
I am hung up on a ‘Train-Thing’, a steam engine powered train thing to be precise. I took the Cumbres-Toltec steam train two days ago; a full day with a buffet lunch that goes down into New Mexico and it was a very good day. Fall colors were at their peak and the money was well spent. Today (right now) I’m waiting for the ticket office to open on the Georgetown Loop RR, at a coffee shop in Georgetown, CO. There is a very good chance I’ll have to stop writing before I’m finished here; not that I write slow but I think slow and then I rethink that.
Today’s ride is only a short loop that runs along I-70 as far as Silver Plume, a short stop and back down the same way we came up. The whole trip takes just under two hours. I’ll have my camera but don’t know what the views will be like. I’ll pass on snapshots (to prove that I was here) and hope for something worthy of a photograph.
I’m staying with an old friend, classmate from high school so the friendship is long lived as are we. we are. After high school we lost track of Martin, rediscovered at our 50 year reunion in 2007. He spent those years in California and Colorado as an emergency room surgeon. He does’t come back to the K.C. area anymore but since then I’ve enjoyed a standing invitation to crash at their house just down the hill a dozen miles from Georgetown. We will hang out this afternoon and winterize his daughter’s camper; I’ll hold the light and nod when I approve.
It’s about time to move on up to the rail head and get my ticket. I’ll put the computer away and pick up again when I have a good story to finish.
Today’s ride is only a short loop that runs along I-70 as far as Silver Plume, a short stop and back down the same way we came up. The whole trip takes just under two hours. I’ll have my camera but don’t know what the views will be like. I’ll pass on snapshots (to prove that I was here) and hope for something worthy of a photograph.
I’m staying with an old friend, classmate from high school so the friendship is long lived as are we. we are. After high school we lost track of Martin, rediscovered at our 50 year reunion in 2007. He spent those years in California and Colorado as an emergency room surgeon. He does’t come back to the K.C. area anymore but since then I’ve enjoyed a standing invitation to crash at their house just down the hill a dozen miles from Georgetown. We will hang out this afternoon and winterize his daughter’s camper; I’ll hold the light and nod when I approve.
It’s about time to move on up to the rail head and get my ticket. I’ll put the computer away and pick up again when I have a good story to finish.
Later . . .
The Georgetown Loop Rail Road was a nice little ride up the mountain and I’m glad I went. It was less than two hours and more of a tourist tourist thing than an adventure. Just two days after the all day, rockin’-rollin’ ride on Cumbres-Toltec it was a bit of a letdown but understood, that was a hard act to follow. Seating was a bench against the wall on both sides of the car, back to the scenery but big, open air windows. Standing up and moving around was against the rules. The ride itself was nice and the views likewise but trees along the way were so close to the tracks you couldn’t see out. Not complaining; everybody else seemed pleased and the whole thing was just too affordable to pass up.
Everything in the gift shop was over priced so I went back into Georgetown, walked the main street and visited shops and stores I’ve learned to appreciate over the years. Bought a nice little pocket knife and at my favorite market I picked up a jar of cherry/jalapeño jelly. If not for the steam train I would have missed hanging out for an extra hour in one of my favorite towns anywhere.
I’ll be moving on tomorrow; have a reservation through my travel club to stay in Colorado Springs again. I’ll hang here with my friends until noon or so and then head down to the Springs. Day after tomorrow it will be all over but the long ride across the flat-land. I’ve learned that excitement is unsustainable and disappointment is relative to one’s expectations. So I look for the best and make do when it disappoints. It’s bedtime and I just finished a shot of peach brandy; nothing remarkable just prepping the eyelids.
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