A GOOD PLACE TO STOP

  I am reminded how much my writing works to process and correlate information for my own sake, to better understand rather than to be understood. Whether or not someone reads it doesn’t really matter but going public does serve as another layer for me to consider. I spent several hours, over 2,000 words in the past two days trying to connect three dots and all I’ve done is muddy the water. So I am starting over. 
1st dot: Drawing the line between knowing and believing is incredibly difficult. One requires proof (compelling, objective, reliable evidence) while the other gets by on good looks and a good measure of blind faith. Sadly, most of us can’t tell for sure where knowing ends and believing begins. 
2nd dot: Those who think their proof is both credible and reliable (trust worthy) are often mistaken. Proof is a high hurdle to clear. Most of us (human beings) take the low road (opinion) when it comes to establishing cause & effect, especially when a moral principle is at stake. 
3rd. dot: The brain is literally two brains working in tandem, often competing for control of the mind. One (the midbrain) is undisciplined, short sighted and inaccessible. It wants what it wants and it wants it now. It doesn’t care about unexpected, unintended consequence. The other is not only curious and patient but it is the accessible, conscious part. It would rather suffer bad but correct news about an unpleasant truth than feel good in the moment with fiction. But it isn't the patient part that gets the last word. Decisions are finalized in the end by the subconscious, undisciplined midbrain. It doesn't mean that we cannot make rational, reasonable, good decisions but that's another story, another hour and a thousand words. I am not making this up, it’s how the brain works.
Here comes the crunch. Say, 15,000 years ago when people began crossing the Bering land bridge from Siberia into present day Alaska, life was short and incredibly dangerous. Fear and reaction to danger needed to be swift and instinctive for them to both survive and prevail. Not enough time; you could be killed before considering all the possibilities. A short fused, selfish mind served them well. But with the advent of civilization and technology, a more disciplined, rational, patient mind is more in line with meeting modern day demands. The problem is that biologically (brain wise) we haven’t evolved beyond the hunter-gatherer’s impatient, intolerant mind.
Evolution doesn’t just happen. It needs a driver, something that interferes with reproduction. Only then, when an evolving trait gives some individuals a reproductive advantage but not others, the species evolves. Those without the advantageous trait lose ground and get culled out of the population. Trait genes that get culled out can no longer be passed on. Then the new trait is the only one available. Not common knowledge but that’s how evolution works. 
Humans would benefit greatly from a genetic shift away from the dominant (impatient, inconsiderate) midbrain to a recessive, if you will, (patient, disciplined, curious) cortex. But in the past 3,000 years when civilization has taken great leaps forward there has been no significant threat to human populations. Without an extreme, dangerous die-off (there are 7.8 billion people currently; unprecedented) the biology of disciplined, critical thinkers has no advantage in the race to procreate.
So, it should be no surprise that a significant, high percentage of modern people are easily influenced by emotional appeals. Traditional, old-world, right & wrong values are exploited. No surprise that conspiracy theories and unrealistic fears are used by leaders and followers as well to gain not only power and material gain but also the deeply rewarding satisfaction of feeling good and right (righteous). That kind of mental posturing can be unbelievably empowering. I have a niece who graduated high school and works in a medical office. She knows more-better about Covid and vaccines than the WHO and the CDC combined. She also knows for a fact that Hillary Clinton runs a human trafficking ring. She knows somebody who knows somebody else who knows for sure. It makes her feel really, really good. I am at 650 words now and it seems like a good place to stop. 

EXPECT IT

  By way of the weather forecast the sun came up nearly half an hour ago but no sunbeams yet. My house is tucked in between two hills and the hills have lots of big, tall trees so that delayed sunshine is anticipated. It is Xmas morning and Santa has come and gone. On the 23rd, two nights back I watched the movie The Polar Express. It is part of my holiday package every year and you might think that a bit repetitious but just the other way. I have other movie-favorites I reboot regularly, stories I know by heart but want to watch again. But Polar Express is new again every time. It works at several levels and there is so much in the marvelous animation and subtle detail, you notice something again every time, like the first time. 
It is about balancing expectations between doubts and faith. Adults can think it a metaphor for Big B Belief while kids (of all ages) are quite comfortable with flying reindeer and jolly old Santa. The Boy Hero gets the 1st Christmas gift, a magic sleigh bell that rings only for those who believe in the magic of the moment. The omniscient narrator throws us a curve at the end when he observes that years later after the kids were grown up they couldn’t get the bell to ring. But in that precious moment and forever after they captured it in memory, it was very, very real. For those few hours I let myself believe along with them. The grownup in me knows all too well that magic is an illusion and that up the calendar in a few days it will be a sweet but benign reflection. Still, we allow it. I do it with a clear conscience and a happy heart. 
Sustaining Joy and Good Will, will be a tall task with Covid surging again. I will be hanging close to home, actually at home. We got all of our family and friends addressed before the midnight hour and I am making merry by myself. Living alone for so long, I’ve learned to take comfort in my own good company. I have decided to add another movie to my Christmas itinerary. A Christmas Story is set in 1983 with 9 year-old Ralphie Parker wanting nothing more and nothing less than a Red Rider BB gun. The plot unfolds with a series of minor crises that play parent’s hopes for a peaceful, happy holiday against their children’s relentless pursuit of Santa’s magic. Mr. Parker tries his best to balance the two and somehow they make it to the closing credits with a happy resolution.
For what it’s worth; in October I was at Costco and saw this wonderful, red and tan, plaid, flannel shirt. At the time I thought it would be the perfect shirt to wear at our family Christmas gathering on the 23rd. The shirt has hung in my closet all these weeks. It was clean to begin with so I didn’t wash it but I did tumble it on high heat for a few minutes to help it relax. On the night before, my granddaughter came down with (what we now know was) Type A Influenza with similar symptoms to Covid. So the party at their house was canceled with no other options. That was too bad but then (as an old friend used to say) “When you least expect it, expect it.” So I got up this Christmas morning with almost nothing on my schedule for the day, looked in my closet and saw the red & tan, flannel shirt. If nothing else, I could wear my holiday uniform on Christmas day. With a quick check for fit I caught my thumb on something that turned out to be a hand warming pocket concealed by the side seams. OMG, it has hand pockets. I got a surprise on Christmas morning after all. So there is an up side to my friend’s wannabe wisdom: when you least expect it, expect it. Christmas has  been merry so far and sunrise tomorrow will be delayed at my house just like today. Next weekend will begin a new year and I am hoping for more pleasant surprises. 

AND THE DAY AFTER THAT

I have been observing Winter Solstice for the past twenty five years and actively celebrating the event for the last dozen or so years. This is old stuff by now for people who know me and maybe I should move on with something current. I observe and celebrate Christmas as well but that story is an exploited misappropriation of Winter Solstice. With that I should post a disclaimer: I have no agenda or dispute with religion (Christian or otherwise), with Baby Jesus or his devout followers. So said, celebrating Winter Solstice is one of several pagan (nature based) traditions that bring meaning to my insignificant, little life. With a few friends, a warming fire and a full moon, we did that last night. No secret, pairing chocolate and brandy with a Lakota Sioux prayer upgrades holy communion from a sober expression of Faith to a festive appreciation for the unbroken linkage of one life to another, to another. It goes life to life, mother to child and cycles again, life to life. Festive gratitude is our expression of interconnection and of our place in time. It simply is wha it is. 
As I remember Easter was supposed to be the high point in our religious calendar. I could do the math but I never came away with a sanctified, righteous aftermath. By now, Solstice is the spiritual high point of my year. It swings on how the moon and stars line up, like they have for tens of thousands of years. The seasons come and go in a predictable fashion. No need for a miracle or an explanation to feel the plenty of harvest and the warmth of autumn give way to winter. Things change and we make the most of what we get. I like all religion when the people who practice it remember to put first the fundamental premise of all formal religion: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That is how truly righteous people begin and end every action and reaction: and everybody said, “Mitakuye Oyasin” All my relations - we are all related - everything is connected. Today the sun will arc just a fraction of a degree higher in the sky than it did yesterday; another fraction of a degree the day after that, and the day after that. 

AND I SAY, IT'S ALRIGHT

  I dropped the last bundle of outbound Holiday Greetings at the post office the other day. I always leave someone out and some come back undelivered but the work is done. I remember when people sent an update for the year and either included it with a card or in lieu of one. I don’t see much of that nowadays but then postage and the cards themselves are very expensive. I understand, a long mailing list can be cost prohibitive. But I remember a long time back when I was coming out, identifying as a writer; I didn’t want to labor friends and family with a chronological list of high and low points from my year. I appreciated the thought as well as the news but, not really good reading. So I started writing Christmas poems and sending them instead.
The word Narrative is a sophisticated way of saying Story. But it is more than that. It is the difference between Bird and Pelican. By a single word a living creature is reduced to nothing more than a feathered, flying animal. A different word and it unfolds with character and imagery. Pelican is more than just a bird, it is big, with a fleshy pouch under its huge beak. It is the bird with long, flared wings that skims low across the shallows, gliding effortlessly on a cushion of offshore breeze. They dive deep into the water at a steep angle, mouth open like a dip net; the fish doesn’t have a chance. To make that revelation just use a different word. That is the difference between Narrative and Story. When I send a holiday greeting I want it to be a good read, its message requires more than information, it needs the narrative.
Over time the poems gave way to timely vignettes about family or my adventures that captured the spirit of the season. My subtle, underlying holiday message is the same every year; “Something interesting happened and I want to tell you. Oh, and by the way, I remember you, I care about you, I am always happy to see you and when I miss you, I miss you. If we can’t sit together and drink coffee then take care and be happy. It is a choice.” 
I spent about 90 envelopes and stamps this year, added a few yesterday that I had overlooked or new to the list. I think of the project as a gift from me to myself. Every time I sign my name, stuff the envelope, lick and stick I give that person my undivided attention and it feels good. I will celebrate Christmas but Jingle Bells & The First Noel are just one of many reasons to proclaim the season. In my end-of-the-year celebrating I usually pay more attention to Thanksgiving and Solstice. Christmas was hijacked by early Christians to coincide with Solstice, (Baby Jesus was born in the spring after all) that way converted pagans could keep a familiar holiday under a new pretense. They neither canceled nor changed the date, just substituted a new story. 
Thanksgiving, on the other hand, began with rituals to celebrate fertility and the harvest season and they predate The First Noel by several thousand years. How can you not love Thanksgiving, thank you.  Solstice reaches even farther back into antiquity. They saw it coming, watching the shadows change as the sun’s arc dipped lower and lower in the southern sky. On that day when shadows were the longest and daylight hours their shortest, they celebrated. They knew from experience that the sun’s arc would begin to rise again. The sun left those cold people with a promise. “It is going to get even colder and times will be painfully hard but I will be back, and I’ll bring summer with me.” For tens of thousands of years the sun has never, not come back. 
I will have company, we will be outside at Dark-O’Clock on 12/21 with a fire and music that exalts the sun and sunshine; George Harrison, John Denver, Sheryl Crow and others. (Here comes the sun and I say, it’s alright) There might even be some sing-along, shuffling of feet and dance a little dance. The fire will stay lit but after the singing and dancing we can come inside, watch the flames from the kitchen window. There will be a pot of green chili and sopapillas to seal the deal and a communal toast with dark chocolate and sipping brandy. 

3 BALLS IN THE AIR

  December is such a busy month it would be easy to just pick up your feet and let it take you wherever it will. I have kids (grown ups) coming in from out of state for the week before and Xmas day (as well as their local siblings) and it feels a lot like juggling. I learned to juggle, taught myself with a set of juggling scarfs. The scarfs (3) were napkin size and sheer, light weight fabric that move so slowly through the air that you can’t throw them, they don’t go anywhere. So you just lift one across your body as high as you can reach and let go. Release with your right hand, let it fall and catch with the left hand. Reach across & lift, release, catch, reach across the other hand & lift. . . left and right, you can keep all three scarfs in the air. Once that is mastered the transition to bean bags or tennis balls comes easy. All you need to juggle more than 3 items is lots of practice. The surprise is that catching is the easy part. The trick is tossing the ball so it falls into the waiting hand on the other side. But then you need to make the same precise toss with both hands, alternating, simultaneously (muscle memory) again and again. Even if you think yourself a skilled athlete, keeping 3 balls in the air is an incredibly satisfying accomplishment, even better than a base hit or a stolen base. 
I am juggling holiday dates, places, people and whatever else there is that I need to take care of. If I’m luckyI will keep all of the balls in the air and catch them all cleanly at the end. Even the best string of juggled balls is spoiled if you have to bend down and chase one across the floor to get them all back in your hands. I am writing early this morning, still dark:30. I am dressed, coffee’s in the mug without any spills and when I am finished here I won’t get back before it gets dark again. 
Working with wood used to be a slam-bam thing with nails and screws but that has all changed. Now I use really good, really strong glue that takes time (hours) to dry. The caveat is, while the glue is wet it is also slippery. Even if you clamp the new-glued pieces in place, pressure from the clamps can make them slip & slide out of alignment. I’m not going into how you prevent that but it is a brave new world down in the wood shop. If you don’t get it perfect there is no re-do and you either do major, time consuming surgery that may yield only fire wood or, start over; saw new boards, sand, fit, glue, clamp again and wait. I tend to keep several projects going so I always have a task at hand, sort of like the dentist shuffling patient to patient rather than wait for chemistry to fizz or, what else, for glue to dry. 
So my time at the keyboard today is limited. There are just a couple of slurps left in my cup. Christmas is not my favorite holiday, not by any means but it certainly requires more time consuming preparation than any other. I have less than two weeks to come up with a white elephant gift (draw numbers and pick a package.) There is a $20 limit but get this; it can be something cool and useful or it can be a gag-gift. Really, I don’t really do gag-gifts but I am the grandpa and I can’t veto the plan like when I was the dad. Gag-gifts suit people who have been conditioned to laugh at anything that combines the right timing with the right tone. Humor is basically a lost art form in the 21st century. When I grumble they tell me to re-gift it to someone else next Christmas. I’m not doing that either, don’t have space and can’t keep track of good stuff now. My coffee cup is down to one slurp. 
No time to edit or revise this morning. The Blog will just have to sink or swim by itself. By the time I finish in the wood shop, stores will be open. Yesterday’s dirty dishes are still in the sink but I feel the need to throw money at some of Santa’s helpers. Coffee’s all gone and so am I.

SINKER CYPRESS & THE OLD DAYS

  I woke up this morning after a 12 hour nap. I was tucked away in my bed when sunlight made its way in between the blinds, across the headboard next to my face. I turned away 3 hours earlier when I shut the alarm off knowing daylight would not be far behind. But even then, sunshine on the bedpost was enough to upset my slumber. It is really hard to sleep while squinting. I know it sounds childish but I love my bed. I had a Sleep Number bed for nearly 20 years and loved it too but it lost its magic and I replaced it with a new Sleep Number. It was like trading in my ’95 Toyota back in 2013. I loved that Toyota but the new Mazda had a dashboard that talked to me and a gage that showed how many miles I could go before the gas ran out. Not unlike Neil Young’s song, Long May You Run; about an old Buick he had back in 1962, we both had gone the limit with the old and were due to move on with something that was even more better.
Maybe the best part about waking up today was knowing there is money in my bank account that would have otherwise been charged to my credit card. Leaving late in the afternoon from Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana I drove all night save for a short sleep in Memphis, TN. Every neon signboard for every motel chain, I drove by without a second thought. Overnighting in the truck cab came easy in younger years but a couple of hours is about all I can manage now. Not to mention, I love it when I arrive on time and the inn keeper goes to the bank without my dollar. The two hour snooze in Memphis was enough to bridge the darkness until the sun came up on the mountains of North Arkansas. I was wide awake when that same sun was high and I took I-49 Exit 178, just a mile from my driveway. I forget how much I leave behind that needs to be tended to on my return. I keep telling myself I’ll not do that again but then (again) happens again and so do I. 
It seems every December the sun’s arc dips deeper in the southern sky and races from horizon to horizon with less daylight than the year before. I know better. I am the one whose calendar is running short of daylight. But if one is to move on with a happy heart it takes a clear eye and an unvarnished view of what long life allows. 
I met Darryl Monse in Robert, Louisiana, a tiny town east of Hammond, LA. He owns a sawmill there. We talked about sinker cypress and we talked about the old days. He had to sit because of bad knees and bad back issues, said he turned 70 in the summer and couldn’t stand for long or do the heavy work anymore. He was not fat but he was large. When we shook hands my hand disappeared into his. What we shared was a genuine love of trees, the wood itself and for making sawdust. He confirmed my suspicions, that my source for buying cypress boards up in Mississippi was much better, far cheaper than anything I would find in Louisiana. He cuts mostly white pine logs, 8’ to 12’ in length, up to 30” in diameter. They were stacked five or six logs high on three sides of his house. The sawmill itself filled the front yard, its tin roof and old fashioned round, flat, vertical, 6’ blade spoke to another century. The big, modern, diesel engine spoke to his sons who do the heavy lifting now. They had obviously transitioned into the new century. 
I chose not to tell Darryl my age, 12 years his senior. I would be hand loading my F-150 with a full load of cypress boards later and then driving all night while he did his best to shuffle from one chair to the next. There was no point. Neither politics nor religion or anything that could be argued came up. No doubt a stone would have been turned that would be better left alone. Then again, nobody has ever mistaken me for a red-neck bigot. I don’t have to say anything, they just seem to know. I understand that I am sometimes misinformed and that nobody can be so reprehensible as I think they tend to be. Still, I am willing to be wrong and to change my thinking but I need convincing. So far all I’ve heard is the same old me-me-me, the bible says, and the way they were raised rhetoric. So maybe there is something I can’t hide that gives me away. But in any case, Darryl and I parted on good terms. He even offered his name as a reference when talking to other sawmill operators and lumber dealers. 
All the new boards are spaced and stacked, high and dry in my basement, waiting for projects still to be determined. They were kiln dried but need several more months of flat, dry storage before they get the finish milling. Today I must go get new filters and upgrade my sawdust collecting system in the shop. Then there are unfinished projects I walked away from. With so much to do after nearly three weeks of road tripping, the next 12 hour nap won’t find an open date until a month or two into the new year. 

SOUNDS SO SIMPLE I JUST GOT TO GO

  Do you remember small zipper cases to hold music CD’s. Not long after that Apple came up with I-Tunes.  Downloaded songs or albums into my laptop’s hard drive. No need to keep the CDs. I have (seems like) thousands of songs on file, at my fingertips now. Some are copied from old CD’s, others I buy on line, one at a time for $1.29 each and I do that. Traveling as much as I do, I keep a dozen CD’s in a sleeve on the sun visor, made up from play lists that I have put together. I can tap into almost 17 hours of my favorites with no commercials or talk-radio. Sometimes I sing along, other times I just soak it up. 
Naming new play lists has become a challenge. The most recent went through several months of tweaking, swapping out one artist for another, shuffling the order and putting some songs back in that had been bounced early on. Then I finally burned it to CD. I call it, The Best Of - 2021.  At the end there had been 3 empty minutes left and I didn’t want to leave any dead space. Most songs, the good ones run 4 to 6 minutes. Then I was listening to a Saturday night jam on NPR and guess what rolls up unannounced; Oh, oh, Mexico. It sounds so simple I just got to go. The sun’s so hot I forgot to go home. . . James Taylor was making an argument for going back to Baja and it took 3 minutes. Awesome, a full 80 minutes of hand picked road songs.
I will stop in Mississippi on the way north. I know a guy there who gives me a good deal on cypress boards from his saw mill. I have space in the truck bed and hate to come home empty handed. At this point in the pandemic, even with the new South African variant ready to reboot the virus, I have a renewed satisfaction with  making sawdust in my wood shop. I probably have more wood now than I can ever use but still, I hate coming home with an empty truck. 

THANK YOU

  Thanksgiving Day: it has always been my favorite holiday. You don’t have to believe anything. You don’t have to take sides. You don’t need to be right and you don’t need permission. All it takes is a simple Thank You! But then again, that’s not exactly true. Gratitude and thanksgiving require a little more than an off the cuff comment or a token gesture. You have to understand how temporary and how fleeting both privilege and good fortune can be. I resist the urge to think some people deserve the good life while others do not. It is a self righteous, medieval mindset that has survived the ages. Our part in that unraveling is subject to the rule of unanticipated consequence which means whatever we get, we get. 
I am truly grateful in so many ways but today, especially today, it can sound like mindless rhetoric. A feast coming together in the kitchen, a parade on television that will transform over a commercial break into a football game, friends and loved ones checking in by phone or text, a truly long weekend and oh yes by the way; Happy Thanksgiving. I tell people all the time; seldom a morning goes by that I don’t take stock in the waking up, happy and thankful that I get another day. To be honest, as an octogenarian you can’t take any day for granted. I don’t get weeks or months to weigh and task. All I can count on is today. So setting this day apart in particular is more suited to people who think in terms of seasons and years. Life is good and today is about all I can squeeze into my schedule. With good luck I will wake up again tomorrow and we can explore that new day but it will have to wait for the wake-up. 

TROUBLE THE WATER

  Everything I’ve ever learned about writing points to the comfort and convenience of the reader. Consider your audience before you start throwing words at the page. Years ago I  belonged to a writer’s group in Michigan that had thirty to forty aspiring writers. There were a few published authors and others who earned their livings as technical writers but the rest of us were trying to hone skills, wishing someone would take notice. Those people who laid eyes on my work and offered their best advice, they identified as writer-readers. They asked questions about why this and did you think about that. We all wanted the same thing, effortless reading with good story. I don’t enjoy that luxury anymore. 
In the 21st century my following has shrunk to single digits and from that shallow pool get little or no feedback. But that's alright. I write in self defense, quoting Ellie Wiesel, writing to understand more than to be understood, and I do that. A handful of friends and family check on my blog to learn where I am, sort of like Carmen Sandiego. But with Covid pandemic my travels and activity have been curtailed. So why write at all? It is still a case of self defense, of processing ideas and making meaning. 
At this point I have very few secrets or untold stories. I read opinions and general interest articles in the news but that is how those writers earn a living. My views depend on my experience and much of that is what I read. Take my opinion and $2.60 and you can swap them for a cup of coffee. Me delving into controversy serves no purpose. I have fact-checked my feelings and conceded that by definition conservatives are not as bad as I want to believe and that progressives are probably no better. Trusting your feelings is unreliable at best and changing the way one feels about anything is a mysterious thing, more an after-the-fact discovery than an in-the-moment decision. Indirectly (or directly) religion influences discussion and generates strong opinion. Organized religion is very important, like grease on the gears for civilization to function but as individuals, one can take it or leave it, however it makes you feel. I have been leaving it. 

Now I’m getting into troubled waters. I remember Madalyn Murray O’Hair from the 1060’s, an atheist activist, committed to the separation of church and state. At the time she was generally portrayed as being both evil and unAmerican. At the time, if you were not WASP (White, Anglo-Saxon & Protestant) you began with two strikes against you. Catholics (beholding to the Pope) only had one strike, not Christian enough. I was never a Big B Believer but neither did I trouble the water. The fact that I can express doubt (unbelief) without consequence, it speaks to the times and not so much about me. That tolerance makes life a lot easier for folks like me than it was for Madalyn O’Hair. 
My grandpa was an endearing old man. He loved us and we loved him back. He was a racist misogynist but he could repeat the Lord’s Payer which, at the time, covered a multitude of sins. Racism and misogyny have both wained in my lifetime but like winter’s chill, have come back around. In terms of lifespan, mine has surpassed his by nearly a decade and I think it gives me some perspective. He enjoyed some affection but not much respect, just an old man whose time was running out. All he had to feel good about was an alcohol buzz and a few like minded bigots who thought their self righteous prejudice be ordained by God. Whatever my shortcomings they are neither gender based nor racist. My feelings stir to the phrase, Liberty & Justice For All. The All part should actually mean just that, all, everyone, every gender identity, every color, every ethnicity. So said, I understand how difficult it is to change the way you feel and like my grandpa, I don’t have any regrets in that regard. He had his compass, I have mine but we would never agree on where to find true north.
I don’t think this exercise qualifies as a Rant. It is not a spontaneous outpouring, it has been thought out and lacks passionate overkill generally associated with rants. I have even left the door open with regard to change and ideology. After all, there was a time when social conservatives were deeply rooted in the Democratic Party. Things change and I want to be part of the change rather than choke on a hardboiled loyalty that has lost its salt. I have friends (people I know and get along with) and even family who think of me as a well meaning but woefully misguided old fool. Some even pray on my behalf that I regain my senses. I can’t dismiss that chance; stranger things happen but neither would you want to bet on that possibility. Nothing new here, not really but I wouldn’t want anyone, no not anybody to misread either my compass or my purpose. 

THERE ARE LESSONS

  With good health, a modest income, some good luck and a few reliable friends, old age can be tolerated. I used to worry the money would run out before payday came. I used to fret over unnecessary meetings and redundant paper work. Of course our work gives us purpose but its weight goes well beyond purpose. I have time now in jog-gear that I never had in sprint mode. It lets me relish things that once passed under the radar. Waking up from peaceful sleep, it should not be taken for granted; thank you! Likewise, hot water on demand may be the most underrated blessing the gods ever shared with mortal man. Still, with 25 teenagers scrambling through my door at 7:22 a.m., wanting nothing more than to beat the tardy bell, it never crossed my mind. With enough age it crosses my mind and any deliverance that befalls me, it beats tolerable, it is acceptable, even embraceable. 

Tolerance may be a good starting point but I want more. Tolerate means just to put up with, to endure. Long life should yield more than endurance. I was schooled early not to take the present for granted: don’t wish your life away. That was difficult when all I wanted was to be 16 so I could drive but what do you tell a 14 year-old. Still, things change after all. No rush now to be another year older. Every breath a bridge to the next, something else not to be taken for granted, thank you! 
I have several pet rocks from the bottom of The Grand Canyon, billions of years old and I nurture them as if they need it. Fact is, they wear their age very well without my help. I am the needy one in that arrangement, just a lump of flesh with a minuscule lifespan. The stones I collect, millions of earth years may pass between their breathing in and breathing out but then neither do they fear for the next breath. 
A friend told me, “There are lessons to be learned. If we fall short, the lesson is reframed to fit another circumstance and we get it again, and again, for as many times as it takes.” I still do that, fall short and repeat a previous lesson but the years have set me up to see it coming, to better be ready. Kris Kristofferson’s song The Pilgrim sums up my condition: “. . . never knowing if believing is a blessing or a curse, or if the going up is worth the coming down.” I can’t say with confidence but if I get to choose, the coming down isn’t all bad; depends on what you do with it.
I could have written about a troubled world, about people who don't care what they do as long as they win, beat the tardy bell. Sometimes I do write about them. They are alright one on one but get them together and they start counting their money and keeping score. As ambitious as the human animal is, if we could do better we would. Civilized problems are compounded by greed, so deeply rooted in the psyche we (humankind) think it a virtue.
So my closer is this: The lesson that may take a lifetime to appreciate teaches us, “Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” What we believe has been fashioned from someone else’s recipe and the kettle we were cooked in. It gives us a reason to make noise and push back but who questions what we’ve been groomed to believe, that might change the recipe. When my dust goes back to its mother I will be forgotten but the lesson will still be there to learn. Life is short, be nice, love who you love. Tell them so but talk is cheap. Love requires action or it is just an abstract idea and who needs more of that!

THE WINTRY TEMPEST

  The 8th Century British monk, The Venerable Bede is considered to be the father of English History. Drawing from his work, after the Romans left and before England was unified as a nation, there was a Northumbrian King who maintained a library. Those earliest monk scholars devoted their lives to recording and translating their oral history and tradition. From that library Bede came across this story, notably from conversations and discussions between the king, his counselors and friends as it related to one’s destiny. 
With regard to destiny one of his counselors eloquently observed: he likened it to a sparrow flying into one end of a lighted hall and out the other. “While inside the hall, it is safe from the wintry tempest. But after a short time it disappears, passing from winter into winter again. So this life of man appears for a little while,” he declared, “but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all”. What a great visual metaphor the sparrow. Destiny is such a human thing but concerning the before & afterlife, the king’s counselor knew as much then as we know now . . . nothing at all.  
As far back as 5,000 years (50 centuries), persons of high rank or important position were buried with articles and provisions for a  journey. They didn’t know either but hope is potent motivation, it gives birth to expectation and our nature is for us to ride that possibility for as long as we can imagine something that we hope for. Where would religion be without an epilogue? 
If I am the sparrow then my journey is approaching the other end of the lighted hall, I am safe from the tempest for now but soon it will default back to winter again and the best authority for what lies ahead of you would be a Northumbrian librarian from the Dark Ages. 
It is generally confirmed, life on Earth traces back to the formation of (amino acids) nearly four billion years ago, that is 4,000,000,000 (9 zeroes). Over that long history the best reason for life (the process) to persist is that it seeks after itself with an adaptability that is unparalleled and unrelenting tenacity. In the science of biology there is a hallowed axiom; Life will find a way. Life (how cells work) replicates a coded copy of itself not unlike a recipe. That copy then guides the formation of a new organism just like the parent (not discounting mutations). Generation after generation, the code is passed on to succeeding generations. Why are we here; the timeless  conundrum. Simple yet profound, the bottom line reason for being here, (existing) is simply to sustain that spark. From fruit flies to people, all organisms are vehicles or conduit that shelter and sustain that spark, copy and pass it on. Organisms wear out and die but the spark is passed along like the Olympic Torch, kept aflame, handed off from runner to runner to runner until the next Olympiad and after that, kept alive until the next Olympic Games, and the next after that. With life, anything and everything that facilitates replication and reproduction is absolutely necessary. What we believe about our destiny is not. As long as a species (humans in this case) keep copying and passing on the code, it doesn’t matter what they believe. Making believe may be irresistible but the plot so far is no more than the last page in an unfinished, open ended story.
People are smarter than the average animal. By now evolution has equipped us with a brain that regulates body function and facilitates imagination which in turn promotes self awareness and creates story, myth, belief. At some point it begs the ultimate question, where did we come from and why are we here? Civilization is a recent development (the last 8,000 - 10,000 years) and our species is still wrestling with it. Most important, it has enhanced our ability to pass on the life code. World population has more than doubled just in my lifetime. When civilization no longer serves that fundamental purpose it (nations, politics, economies, religion, etc.) will change to meet the need or go away, disappear. By definition, he word (extinct) can only mean one thing.  
Civilization and (technology) have advanced at warp speed while human anatomy and physiology have taken millions of years to get us down out of the trees, into houses and feeding on Taco Bell burritos. Humans are still equipped with bodies (minds) that are best suited to function in a hunger/gatherer culture. We manage now but it isn’t getting easier. There are computers that truly do perform brain functions faster and more reliably than our brains at their best. Those computers cannot duplicate all brain functions simultaneously but the overriding caveat is not (what if) anymore, it is (when). If and when artificial intelligence keeps getting better, humans might trust an exotic algorithm more than traditional wisdom or divine inspiration. We already do that with important decisions concerning medicine and meteorology. That revelation is disturbing, even damning if you believe in the myth that makes us feel so competent, so righteous, so essential. 
If and when artificial intelligence (computers) can fabricate humans in vitro; I don’t want to be around for that. So maybe it’s good this sparrow’s passage is coming up on the exit ramp, back to the wintry tempest that will swallow me up again. There is an insightful little story that parallels Bede’s account. A thinker asks another thinker, “The afterlife, what will it be like?” The 2nd thinker replies, “About the same as before you were born.” 

REMEMBERING CARL SAGAN

  I am awake in the wee hours, texted my daughter who works the late shift and she returned, “It’s Early:30”. I am remembering Carl Sagan, a truly wide and deep well of not only knowledge but also awe and wonder. He died before his time but he took the unfathomable mystery of of nature, of the universe in particular and made it comprehensible. His quotes hang in my mind like Van Gogh paintings on museum walls. 
Shortly before his death in 1996 he wrote, “We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science and technology; and this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces.” I am not a doomsday prophet but I don’t need help getting the point. Currently, scholar Yuval Harari is serving up that same message only from another direction. Together, ignorance and power have no fail-safe, no guard rail, no parachute, no compass, no self correcting autopilot. The dynamic duo of ignorance and power has been the trademark of many self serving former leaders, one in particular. Imagine a three year-old who has just mastered their first tricycle and you trust them with the keys to the car. 
Sagan was the reassuring voice that balanced calculated risk with prudent reserve. Falling down can be undone, you get back up but being blown up is unforgiving. His point was this, hubris that flourishes hand in glove with power doesn’t acknowledge its own ignorance. That bears repeating, “. . . hubris does not acknowledge its own ignorance.” Sagan doesn't need me to rail against ignorance and its diabolical deal with power, he said it well enough. 
On another day when he was waxing wonder he slipped into a poetic meter, something to do with seeing photographs of the earth from deep outer space. "Everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives on that pale blue dot, a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” I would give Carl Sagan my undivided attention anytime, every time. Pundits and malcontents might call him a liberal elitist but when he didn’t know, he said, “I don’t know.” and when he said, “This is how it is . . .” you could count on it. 
For detailed, qualified political commentary I read the New York Times. Sometimes they beat up on popular dignitaries but that is their job. Sagan looked at his culture much like a new mother with her newborn that was both grotesquely deformed and had an incurable case of explosive diarrhea. She knew the unavoidable truth but then hope has always been able to bridge despair. I think Sagan took that position in self defense. I wish I could do the same. 

IF I WERE KING

  Once upon a time in the early 1990’s I was an Environmental Issues Resource Teacher, responsible for planning and implementing hands-on instruction for middle school environmental field trips. One of our 7th grade teachers was really good with his kids, he could turn the tables on provocative questions about why we did things a certain way or why the rules called for things they didn’t like. His best line was predictable enough and I’m sure his students could feel it coming. He would reply, “If I were King of the world I would . . .” and offer a (sometimes magical) fair minded solution to both satisfy the student and meet the spirit of the rule. It worked like a detour for road construction, a minor inconvenience but in the end you get there. That was so long ago but still, when I face a troublesome inconvenience, his wonderfully disarming disclaimer comes to mind: If I were King of the world I would . . .
I would make a rule; when you have a disagreement or disappointment with another person you sit down together and trade shoes. They put your shoes on their feet and you theirs. Then you go for a walk together and talk together. This collective effort must continue for a sufficient time or distance, whichever meets the need. So you walk at least a mile together in the other’s shoes. You can repeat the walk as many times as you like. Obviously, (In their shoes) is a metaphor for stepping back, letting go of one’s own opinion to see through new eyes. It may not be a cure but certainly, it will cast new light on the situation and that would be a new beginning. That's what I would do If I were King.

A GOOD FIT

  This is a round-about way of getting into the subject but then I do that. I have a new Sleep Number bed. My old Sleep Number bed lasted nearly twenty years and I am glad for that but both the bubble and the pump had lost their shine and my sleep was suffering. I don’t know why but I was surprised to learn about new features, like the pump is contained inside the bed itself and is accessible from the top. Then I got a new, expensive pillow at 50% off from the clearance rack and I sleep very well now thank you. But my dream world has changed also and I remember those involuntary dreamland experiences. I never did that before. In the first hour or so after getting up I will have residual feelings and emotional aftermath that emerged from the dream with me. 

This morning I kept hitting the snooze button. Mid October with an open window, the warm cocoon felt really good so I kept putting off the getting up. I usually need to turn on a light but daylight was streaming in and there comes a point when my body takes over without any voluntary motor commands. When it goes on autopilot like that I get up with it, as if I had a choice. In that moment of transition I thought about the semiconscious noodling that I was coming out of and the feeling was that of resentment bordering on pissed off. The uninvited observer from my dream had suggested that I was “uppity”. Demonstrating unmerited feelings of self importance is generally thought of as a character flaw. I wasn’t offended so much but the word (uppity) has racist roots. That plus the fact that many whites don’t know that, it compounds the insult and elevates the racism to a seemingly justifiable, cultural norm and that is what gets me going. I knew without being told and I am naïve as can be, always the last to know but when I can taste the blood I stop doubting.
After a few clicks on the mouse I came across reference to an insulting indiscretion on talk radio back in the middle of the Obama years. Host Rush Limbaugh commented on Michelle Obama’s condescending “uppityness”. When taken to task he and other radio bigots defended the comment as a colorless remark. But the writer had already done her homework and noted research that in the last half century that (uppity) usage in print was associated with racist text and context significantly more than as a generic term. It didn’t change anything in the bigot community. They were well schooled in the strategy, (never admit anything, deny, deny, keep selling the lie.) It was only news for a day or so but none the less; my first thought was to tell him to go to Hell but I suspect that is where he ended up. I never wished him dead but now that he is, along with his Presidential Medal of Freedom from the king  of (deny, deny, keep selling the lie;) I think it a good fit. 
I don’t think Michelle Obama or Stacy Abrams or Kamala Harris are loosing  sleep over his insults. But I do think the cat is out of the bag. Like toothpaste out of the tube, there is no going back. Polite, well intended White culture (people) have been jarred out of their complacent ignorance. Black Lives Matter is not just a catchy hook line. Nobody gets shot in their car for driving while White. Nationalists, white supremacists and whites who realize that opening the door of privilege to people of color would feel like punishment; they are lock jawed onto the past and won’t give up without a fight. But change is in the air and who knows how that will unfold. It is scary, it scares me. If you think four years of Trumpublican rule was bad, don’t think it is all behind us. I am afraid that what we thought was the worst can get even worse. But all I can do is throw words at the page and hold my breath. In a worst case scenario I can straddle the border with passport privilege. It won't be a divorce, nobody wants me but separation doesn't require alimony and I play well with Canadians.  

POLITE CONVERSATION

  It has been 2 weeks since I’ve had even the urge to write and that is unusual. From a writing standpoint I am in my Elie Wiesel mode, where a better understanding is more the purpose than being understood. I could use an ‘Ah-Ha’ moment right now, it would make my day. 
It has long been observed that religion and politics have no place in polite conversation. In Roger McWilliams’ self help book titled DO IT, religion & politics were referred to as The Gap. He had nothing to say or recommend other than it is a mine field with little to gain by going there. For the most part I follow his advice there. But like my hero Wiesel, writing is my way into the process. If I don’t shake the tree I end up sitting on my hands and that’s no good either. 
Growing old can wear you thin but it beats the alternative. I reference myself with that distinction frequently, not that it has import in itself but with any story you need a point of reference. Long life gives me that. But this is not polite conversation and all I want here is the better understanding. I was 6 when FDR died and since then I have been through 14 presidents, going on #15. My parents were blue collar, Yellow Dog Democrats and that influence on me cannot be dismissed. My dad was in the skilled trades, a tool & die maker. It was their firm belief and who am I to argue, without trade unions we would have scratched out a sharecropper’s living in a tarpaper shack. 
Our religion required we pray over food and at bedtime. Mom studied the bible, sometimes read aloud, other times she had us read to her. Sunday church was mandatory. In summer there was vacation bible school and a week-long, every night revival with an itinerant evangelist, dreadful prayers that put you to sleep, alter calls and baptisms. In self defense my dad said, “. . . we don’t fall down or hoot and holler like the Pentecostal’s down the road.” I got baptized at 13 because Mom said it was time. She asked if I felt the Spirit and I told her I did but I knew that was what she wanted to hear. What I got was all wet. With the benefit of hindsight and candor; from a lifetime of stumbling, falling and getting back up I think I can take a hard look at The Gap. 
All religion has its roots in Myth (Joseph Campbell). By definition Myth is a man made story that uses familiar language and shared experience to explain the inexplicable (giants in the sky, hammering out thunder and lightning and supernatural powers that can save the soul). It is how humans flesh out a plausible story when experience is either inadequate or incomprehensible but very real, a metaphor that gives you something you can hang your hat on. Made up stories with happy endings can offset the grim reality of a scary, unforgiving world. A large part of that construct involves a fabricated, spiritual life boat that we call religion. 
In a broader sense, religion has provided an important social matrix. Tribal clans were reluctant to cooperate with strangers. Religion allowed for large numbers of unrelated individuals to identify with each other and cooperate together (division of labor). It was necessary for the evolution of society and civilization. Myth did not go dormant after the Greeks gave us Zeus and Poseidon. Modern myth uses contemporary language and is compatible with modern times. But it is still the mind’s way of dealing with the inexplicable. We write poetry and build starships but we are no better than our primitive forebearers at rationalizing the mortality caveat. 
I (me) understand that this life is temporary, that birth and death are knots at the ends of the same cord and I just have to deal with it. For those who can’t cope, they can take shelter in the myth. If you need religion in your life then by all means you should have it. My parent’s religion served them well. I wanted to please my mother and I did everything she asked but Jesus was just a character in bible stories like super heroes today. By now my abiding faith is in gravity, replication and photosynthesis. I take comfort in Mark Twain’s, “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.” When this life is through with me, my descendants will carry on. Whether or not there is a God is irrelevant, it doesn’t matter. Zealots who castigate others for following a false myth or demonize unbelievers for heresy are stretching the story, as if they can earn a greater reward in heaven. 
Politics and religion; sometimes they overlap, you can’t tell where the one ends and the other begins. Consider the Taliban. Consider the ‘fall down, hoot & holler’ Pentecostals down the road. But for my purpose here, politics is nothing more than the process of making decisions that affect groups of people. It may be simple as two people deciding on the opera or a ball game, or complicated as two nations at war. The Conservative vs. Liberal rift that has divided America is what comes to mind. If you think it to be as simple as the issues, you must have drunk the Kool Aid. As a disclaimer remember; mankind has been negotiating collective decisions for at least 20,000 years under the illusion that common sense and free will are reliable. We know better now but the rift between knowledge and tradition creates a terrible stumbling block. The brain/mind makes decisions, often without our permission. That is usually predetermined by what makes us feel good or feel right as in (righteous) and how we feel is a revelation, not a decision. 
Some people/cultures tend to be more impulsive while others more reflective. But all humans suffer the same hardwired program that gives us false confidence in our ability to do the right thing. Before there were people, there was no such thing as right or wrong. What is right or wrong, true or false turns out to be whatever we agree on and that is not as reliable as we trust it to be. Pogo, the comic strip character once observed, “We have met the enemy and they are us.”Throughout history, some lessons have been learned so we don’t have to repeat costly mistakes. That idea is true in some cases but evidently not others. Waging war out of fear and lust has never been put to rest and the curse of privilege & oppression is a thorny perennial with no apparent cure.
My ideological leaning is to the left, progressive if not liberal. I do question, even challenge my own feelings and I play the devil’s advocate against myself. When you do that honestly, with open ended possibility, having values and convictions that are carved in stone becomes difficult. You realize that right and wrong are parts of the modern Myth. I think it boils down to a few basic, acquired assumptions. First is the juxtaposition of centralized, authoritarian leadership with emphasis on material gain and vindictive punishment. Its counterpart is leadership that is diversified and collaborative with rehabilitation or consequences appropriate to the circumstance. Second, the one would cling to an unchanging, traditional model of vertical hierarchy and unswerving group loyalty. The other option is that change is good if it is managed with attention to an (egalitarian) greater good. Loyalty would be pragmatic, about looking forward in principle, not leaning back on iron clad traditional paradigms. Lastly, human nature gives us both a selfish, stingy side and a generous, sharing instinct. How they balance out is a reliable indicator of an individual’s political orientation. I would represent the latter possibility with all three examples making me progressive in the least. 
I don’t care much for political parties, maybe necessary evils considering the way democracy and freedom work but they all suffer the risk of addiction to power. You can’t serve your constituents if you don’t get elected so the first order of business is fund raising and counter measures. In that game, ends justify means and there has never been a more direct path from noble intent to corruption and deceit. So I vote for candidates who believe as I do that we have a collective responsibility to help each other. Those who have more than they need owe it to a system that put prosperity within their grasp. Some believe that their success is the direct result of their own decisions and actions, and it is but it doesn’t stop with that. No mater if your success is one of just scraping by or one of grandeur, someone else’s, many other’s finger prints are all over it too. I think of the Christian parable of footprints in the sand. When all you can see is one set set of tracks you think they are your own but that was where someone else was carrying you. You can’t have it both ways. You have to work as if you are on your own but without a full cast of actors the show doesn't have a plot, the curtain never goes up. To say, “I got mine, you get your own” is untenable. 
As a career educator my experience with poverty has been indirect, through children who lived with their mother or an aunt in a parked car or got shuffled around as need be from one relative to another. In school their most important lesson was lunch. I know enough to believe a comment from a radio interview with a single mom; “The hardest job in the world is being poor.” Of course my conservative counterpart would say, “It’s not my problem.”  That opens a can of worms and I could go on but I have opened the door and drawn a line, exactly what I set out to do. 

BLUE EYED BOYS

  From 563 posts in 9 years I do not remember much about subjects or details from previous blog entries. Neither do I have an assistant to catalog themes or buzz words. My titles may shed some light on what to expect but don’t count on it. I lift a few words from the text with the expectation the reader will notice while reading. When (if) they come back they may look at the title and wonder where and how it will fit into the reading. I doubt anybody actually does that but it is habit by now and it works for me. Often my efforts defy titles anyway. If you write fiction then the story is like a time capsule, unique to that set of characters and plot. But I lose track of where I’ve been, what I encountered and what was on my mind at the time. Some people think out loud, I think on paper. It’s not a problem, just that I identify with birds that feed on cherries from my choke cherry tree. Flying away they leave their host a tip on the windshield. Like me and my writing, they lose track of the last draft and what was in it.
The reference to birds was spontaneous; I do it without thinking. I notice birds in the air, birds perched and on the ground, I always have. They can fly and I can’t and that’s enough. The Joy Of Discovery is an empowering thing that is supposed to strike sometime in middle school but if it struck at all it missed me. Still, like discovering chocolate, it is never too late. In my first year of college, at age 25, I tapped into biology. From the world of the living I acquired a deep, abiding affection for Dragonflies and Frogs, Kit Fox and Killer Whales. I love Sycamores and Cone Flowers, even Lily Pads. But birds are my favorite, they always have been, even as a blue eyed boy. They find their way into my stories and reflections without me trying, like choke cherries on the windshield. 
In my case, the Joy Of Discovery was precipitated by nature and the natural world. I have a son whose Joy was born of things with wheels, things that go vroom-vroom. Making tires squeal was never enough. He had to know how fuel gets into the cylinder and why valves take turns opening and closing. Gear ratios and exhaust back pressure were irresistible and his Joy has never waned. My Joy came with metabolism and replication, semi permeable membranes and the way (+) potassium & sodium ions drive nerve impulses. That Joy has never lost its way either. It has only expanded and here I am in the pale of old age wanting to learn something, something I missed on the first go ‘round or even something new altogether. That decade in the 1950’s when I was treading water and should have been making waves, I’ll never catch up.
Somewhere today, I don’t know where, a blue eyed boy with short attention span sits staring out the window, studying birds perched on a power line. His teacher is coming down his row collecting assignments but he hasn’t finished, he has barely begun. Someday, when the place and time are right, Joy will strike; not like a lightning flash but like unfolding petals on a purple cone flower. That unfolding can last a lifetime. It happened once so I know it can happen again, maybe even again after that, tomorrow, some other place, another blue eyed boy. 

BUYER BEWARE

  In recent weeks, from different sources and unrelated circumstance, I have been told that I have an Old Soul. It’s not something you dwell on but the expression has always seemed peaceful to me and I took it as a compliment. Wikipedia and Google Search are not as reliable as we might wish but they did provide some backstory. Originally the idea was linked to reincarnation, that having an Old Soul is about innate wisdom and core truths that have carried over from a previous life. Age itself doesn’t have much to do with it. You can be really old and still be more wise than one’s age would allow. If you don’t buy into reincarnation then maybe a loose-fitting sense of good karma will do. 
I came across a  paper published in a psychiatric journal listing a dozen traits that correlate with Old Soul personality. Not that one causes the other but they often show up together. To that end, people with Old Soul persona may step back and see the Big Picture while others scrutinize the worm on the hook. They wouldn’t care much for status quo or embrace popular culture, more likely to question what they learned in school or were taught by their parents. Having an Old Soul, the deeper worth of ideas and relationships would prevail over the pursuit of material wealth. Lateral thinking would be employed more than the linear alternative. The list goes on. If you matched up on most of the traits it would suggest that you may have an Old Soul. Still, it’s not a recipe. 
Introducing the idea of Core Truths set off alarm bells with me. Human nature is self serving, both physical and emotional. If it can’t be measured objectively, carry out three places from the decimal, then the core truth is whatever we say it is. The difference between having an Old Soul and being both immoral and dangerous just depends. After all, who would see Old Soul virtues in someone whose values conflict with their Faith, politics, moral or cultural traditions? 
In my world, an Old Soul profile would be more about reflection and less about reaction, pose more good questions than right opinions. I would think that heroic Old Souls reject condescending (Either-Or) absolutes in favor of the open ended (This-And) possibilities. I would gravitate, regardless of age, to fair-play. It should be a pattern, not an off the cuff anomaly. I had a great mentor in college, a coach who emphasized, “If you can’t afford to lose, you can’t afford to play.” He also said, “Be concerned with preparation. Winning will take care of itself.” In some ways he was a wise old soul. It struck a nerve with me. 
Since those formative college days, I have been not only collecting but leaning on quotes that ring of innate wisdom and core truths. I’m sure my heroes are not everybody’s heroes. Still, what works for me still works. I use those quotes like stepping stones to where I need to be. They can come from famous or obscure sources but when looked at altogether, one gets a good idea to what’s cooking in my kitchen. John Muir said, “When you tug on any single thing in nature, it is connected to everything else and the universe tugs back.” 
Michaela Coel is a British writer/actor whose recent book, Misfits, is a personal manifesto. She details how the world prizes uncommon talent but then burdens those uncommon talents with traditional expectations. She goes on to say that even without that bias and ignorance, you don’t have to be singled out for your differences. Being misfit may mean you are simply someone who (not fitting in) views the world and sees it in a way that is different. I have a long response to that revelation but it is another story for another time. But I do identify. 
Wisdom is something else. Old Souls need be wise or they be just old with a soul. It requires experience, that provides knowledge, that facilitates good judgment, experience = knowledge = good judgment; in that order. I understand that one man’s treasure cam be another man’s junk. The same could be said of wisdom and folly. In the end it depends on what you’ve been conditioned to believe. Kurt Vonnegut (awesome quotes)  he said, “We become what we pretend to be, so be careful what you pretend to be.”
By my way of thinking, it takes a long time to grow wise and it needs to be acquired first hand. If it can be mysteriously endowed then I wouldn’t argue but It certainly doesn’t come in a bottle or a book or out of someone’s mouth. Propaganda is transferable but wisdom is not. It would accumulate through many mistakes and failures, necessary steps on the learning curve. On the other hand, old world thinking (tradition over knowledge) tells us that wisdom is universal. It is absolute and it doesn’t change so you can get it from a book, or from someone who read the book. That sounds like proselytizing to me, religion or politics, no difference. Of course we can observe others and listen to their story. That wanna-be wisdom can be sampled vicariously but it is hearsay at best. That is how we learn but the buyer should beware. Spoon fed wisdom runs the high risk of being no more than crafted propaganda. Buddha said in so many words; Don’t believe anything anybody tells you, not even if I tell you, not until it rings true with your own experience. I recommend Buddha. Another trait was that Old Souls tend to identify with each other easily, quickly. If someone thinks I have an Old Soul, seeing the world through the same lens would make it about them as much as about me but I would still think it a compliment. 

ROLL ON ROLL OFF

  When my mind gets loose off its leash it doesn’t go exploring, it goes back to old beliefs and ideas. It is not boring, I am just tired of it showing up in my writing. Spending so many words on why people behave like they do, it feels like digging in the same old hole just deeper. I don’t need the repetition and I don’t need to iron out any wrinkles. What I understood and believed last month or last year will evolve but one should expect that. Still the bones of that story show no sign of shape-shifting into a new creature. No less the defense of religious unbelief, especially Western Religion and The Sons of Abraham; I have about worn that out. Still it finds its way into writing that started out uncluttered in another direction. What I do believe is that I am better with telling Story than selling beliefs or philosophy. 
Roll On Roll Off: If you know where Punta Arenas is then you get a gold star. If you know where Puerto Edèn is, you get my gold star as well. Wandering around Patagonia with no itinerary, it was June and that meant the onset of winter. In Spanish, El Fin de Mundo translates, The End Of The World, an informal reference to Ushuaia, Argentina. It is the southern most city on the planet, at the farthest tip of South America. It was snowing there when I left in June of 2005. 
The small Chilean city of Punta Arenas, an all-day bus ride from Ushuaia, is located on the north shore of the Straights of Magellan. That time of year, if you want to catch a ride north on the NAVAMAG Ferry, this is the place. After a five day cruise up and through the Chilean archipelago we would arrive in Puerto Montt. The ferry was a roll on - roll off vessel with mostly cattle trucks on their way to the slaughter house but they book passengers as well. December is tourist season, June is not. There were only six passengers, two young Brits on holiday from university, an Australian petroleum engineer and a Peruvian student from Washington D.C. double-dipping travel with a visit to her grandparents. Then there was me and a young Chilean woman whose English was as challenged as my Español. We were a good match on the learning curve to help each other. She said she would be getting off before Puerto Montt. No stops listed on the schedule but I didn’t give it a second thought. 
On the very top of the ship there was an observation deck with a railing, several benches and a huge chess board painted on the deck. The chessmen were made of painted plywood that fit together like puzzle pieces, standing tall enough to be moved from square to square without bending over. The Latino lady didn’t know how to play chess so I taught her. When the weather turned windy or cold the others went down into the lounge but we held out, speaking Span-glish and playing chess.
On the third day I learned that we would offload cargo at a small fishing village in the middle of the night. I set my alarm but no need. The slow, tight turns and blasts from the ship’s horn announced our arrival. It was pitch dark. On shore, far away village lights might have been stars but they burned steady while the real stars twinkled. A dozen fishing trawlers shuttled supplies back to their pier, taking turns at the stern ramp like trick-or-treaters at the door. I took photos, careful not to get in the way but always pressing for a better view. The young woman really was getting off before Puerto Montt, she was there in uniform, part of a small Navy unit stationed in Puerto Edèn. The town is one of the most remote places on the continent. The only way in or out is by boat or sea plane. The only avenues are deep, narrow, flooded canyons that plunge between steep mountainsides, no roads, no streets, only wooden piers and boardwalks between buildings. At times the channel between islands was so tight we moved at a crawl and I could have (in my youth) bounced a ball off the cliffs on either side. In Puerto Edèn it rains on the average of 350 days a year. With a population of about 200 souls, fishing and the military seemed to be the only attractions.
Backing up in a tight turn, with a few blasts on the horn and a fleeting backward glance the village lights disappeared and everything went silent. Two days later in Puerto Montt they offloaded passengers first, ahead of the cattle trucks. Walking past them on an elevated ramp, the stench of excrement washed out of the trucks and onto the deck was potent. We laughed at how lucky we were, the smell never reached us up front on the upper decks. 
The day would be clear and sunny in Puerto Montt. My first task was to stow my duffle bag and guitar in a locker at the bus station. Cities in southern Chile are small, maybe five thousand people at most, nothing like the millions in Santiago. The next bus back into Argentina was in the morning so I shopped for souvenirs, bought several pieces of salmon leather from a shop along the waterfront. They skin the fish and tan it the same way they make any other leather. The grain side had scales instead of hair and you can see the scale pattern with its lateral line which is absolutely cool. I stayed in a hotel with private bath and my own telephone, not accustomed to fancy tourist accommodations. The snow was deep when we crossed the continental divide the next day, thru customs and back into Argentina. 
Stories need a beginning, a middle and an end. This little vignette is too small to have legs of its own, just a story-bite from a larger story and it is all I am good for right now. 

9/11

  What I learned from 9/11: if someone wants to hurt you or your country bad enough, if they plan with diligence, raise money, keep secret their secrets, wait for the right time no matter how long and martyr themselves in the process, they can do it. Twenty years later we are still licking our wounds, grieving the loss. The ‘Never Forget’ thing is about venting frustration in the moment. Next week it will drop off the radar for another year before we make a show of remembering again. I remember exactly, where I was when the plane hit the second tower and when the Pentagon was hit. I will not be dismissed for lack of caring or someone's idea of a callous character flaw but twenty years is enough. I don’t need to relive that terrible day or comfort those who lost loved ones. Somewhere, they are still remembering Pearl Harbor and that’s alright. But I have remembered enough. When someone swears an oath to never forget I am reminded, never say never. Today has been a good day. If I wake up in the morning I will be thankful for another day. I have lost track of so many terrible anniversaries that 9/11 can’t fade away fast enough. Man's inhumanity to his own kind is incurable. I am afraid that selfish revenge will masquerade as righteous justice and no one will notice. That’s what people do with their high minded, best intentions. King Solomon was wise as they said he was. There is a time for everything, for every purpose under the sun and it is my time to bury old bones.

HARDCOPY

  Falling behind with any tedious task can be disheartening to the point of walking away as if it should self engage and complete itself without you. Even though it might feel liberating, that strategy is doomed from the start. My writing has been a key part of how I process experience (the cards life has dealt me and the way I have played them). Nearly all of my (writer) writing since the early 1970’s has been filed away where they can be retrieved and revisited. More than half a century’s worth of journal and creative writing has been homogenized and stored in a computer file. I know how computerized documents can disappear or crash and never be seen again. My stuff gets backed up in the cloud now but old dogs (like me) are creatures of habit. It would be foolhardy choosing hard copy over the cloud but, call it another layer of security. I have eight, 2” and 3”, three ring binders full of my writing that date back to 1972. At the time, the IBM Selectric Typewriter was high tech and I felt privileged having access to one. Instead of all those old fashioned arms with two characters on each one, the Selectric had a single, type-ball with all the letters and characters on it. You still had to use correction tape to strike over errors but that was great, it didn’t get any better. Some of my earliest works have survived as Selectric originals. 
Some of my original typewritten work had worn thin, frayed, smudged and I retyped what I thought was worth keeping, only this time on the computer. It was floppy discs and folded print paper that fed the printer, not unlike toilet paper scrolling off a roll. What hasn’t changed is that computers still crash and documents still get lost. In the late 80’s and early 90’s I started backing up the computer with hard copy. If I couldn’t take the computer home with me at least notebooks travel well. I still back up everything with hardcopy and the pages accumulate fast while I move slow.
If I get caught up by the end of the month every month I could stay caught up. If I forget or fall behind it is easier to keep letting it accumulate like dust under the bed. When you realize how far behind you are, procrastination becomes even easier and the task compounds. I can’t blame Pandemic, I had fallen far behind before that. I had a little over three years of journaling on the bubble just waiting for a crash. Having such a backlog felt overwhelming. Still, I am the only person who could do it. If it were just printing, anyone could do that, just hit Select All and Print. If I still have it in the file I consider every written piece to still be in progress. Nothing is ever finished, like me; you can leave me in the basement for as long as you like but when I come out I will need a shave and a haircut. 
When I notice something that needs revision, I revise. That is the rule for any and every article, all the way back. Before I print the page it needs to be reread, overlooked spelling & punctuation errors need correcting, word selection may need tweaking, reframe sentence structure as needed, delete whole paragraphs that, in retrospect, serve no purpose. Editing is the real work of writing. Reassuring myself with the old axiom, “Every journey begins with a single step.” I figured; do a few copies at a time and keep the three ring binder on top of my desk where it would be a nagging reminder.
It has been over a month, maybe two since I started the 2019-2020 binder. Now all I have left to catch up on is this year. Funny, reading your old, fermented writing with New Eyes it changes things. With New Eyes, I am much more auto-critical than the creative, storytelling writer (me) was at the time. When writing is still fresh you can feel good about shaky syntax. I get little or no feedback so the critic has to be me. I don’t want to make public anything that rings of me that felt good in the moment but failed the test of time. When I was active with my writers guild I got plenty of important, necessary, critical peer review. Writers like to show off now and then with a wide and deep vocabulary or using complicated but correct, compound sentences; stuff only other writers appreciate. New Eyes are nearly as keen as Other Eyes, they notice every stroke and what felt clever or righteous at the time might not age very well.
A long time ago I stumbled across several song lyrics that my teenage daughter and I wrote, traveling in the car between Michigan and Missouri. She wrote everything down as we drove. Years later I found the clipboard and yellow legal pad with the lyrics in her hand writing. I typed a copy but misplaced the page in a box on a top shelf in the basement. Rediscovering it I shared it with her we were delighted, a snapshot reboot of a benchmark place in time. Leave it to her as an adult, latching onto the lyrics again and to serve me notice. “Put this in a notebook. Keep it in a safe place and don’t lose it again.” 
Maybe a decade later the song, Chicken Skin from that collaboration found its way into our conversation and she amended her earlier ‘Notice’. She told me she wanted all of my writing in print, hard copy. Certainly there would come a day when either the computer or I would crash and the half-century journal would be lost. “I will want all of it.” she said. 
They say, for as long as someone remembers your face and your story, your legacy lives. The same could be true about your words, the ones you put to the page. For as long as they are pressed between the pages, on a shelf or in a box, even if they go unread your story survives with a life of its own. It just has to be intact and available. I like that. It comes as close to an afterlife as anything I would ever imagine.

GETTING BACK UP

  August 29, sixteen years to the day after Katrina dropped in on New Orleans; Ida has Grand Isle (to the west) in the crosshairs. That will put the Big Easy on the ‘Dirty Side’ (more wind/surge/rain). In ’95 the ‘Eye’ went to the Mississippi coast and N.O. dodged that bullet, not that it helped but you never know, maybe it could have been worse. They are predicting landfall this afternoon. I’m afraid it will be flashlights and generators in south ‘Weeziana’ tonight. 
I could spin off on environmental issues but I won’t. Name calling and pointing fingers may vent anxiety but the kind of change required to resolve manmade climate issues will call for much umbrage and and even more time. I watched a two hour episode of the Ken Burns series on World War Two last night. I’ve seen it several times but some of the visuals and their stories bear watching again. He chronicled the war through four towns; in Minnesota, Alabama, Connecticut and California. It began with young men who went off to war and loved ones left behind, it looked at cities with wartime industry, workers who relocated to fill the wartime job slots. Racism softened, at least for a while. The story Burns offered up was complicated and overlapping. I’ll not rehash the program but I was reminded that war is not and has never been a noble endeavor. It is a ruthless, gruesome struggle with young men following orders, killing each other in the name of God or country, and where innocent bystanders die grizzly deaths for simply being in harms way, where human suffering is the rule. Leaders and profiteers would paint it otherwise but their cause is the universal constant; ‘To the winner go the spoils.’

The segue back to hurricanes and Ida in particular is that by war or natural disaster, people are resilient. Whatever horror we encounter, life looks to the future rather than dwell on the past. This is cliché I know and I don’t like clichés but long suffering, partisan bloodshed is not something one gets over, people persevere and go through. Getting over suggests recovery while going through just means you come out the other end. That was true with war and no less, a devastating hurricane. After Katrina in ’05 they salvaged and repaired what they could, replaced what they couldn’t fix and moved on. If we weren’t resilient we would dry up and perish. After Ida leaves her mark, those people will salvage, repair, replace and move on. Concerning the pressure of his job, former President Harry Truman said, “If you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.” You don’t have to  live on a stormy coastline but those who do, they know about getting knocked down and getting back up. Ida is the storm today, between the one before and the next one up the line. The next deadly landfall is out there, on the way, we just can’t say when.

        I have concern for a friend who lives there. We talked earlier today and they are prepared as they can be. They have a permanently installed, industrial grade generator that can meet their (essential) electrical needs for several weeks. With enough elevation (20’) and set back far enough, several miles from Lake Pontchartrain’s north shore, storm surge is not much of a threat. High water (flooding) and wind damage can be. So she prays at the Catholic Church and I simulate Voodo ceremony on the patio with dance (shuffling feet & waving arms) rattle chicken bones in a brown paper sack, chant some gibberish and sprinkle some brandy (not too much) on the ground. My Faith in Voodo is nil but I like the idea of ancestor worship. Between the two of us, I don’t think our collective ritual can change the weather but neither can it do any harm. I know I feel better after I shuffle my feet to some gibberish and sip a little brandy.

THREE WORDS TOGETHER

  At eighteen my parents thought my life trajectory would parallel that of the steam ship Titanic. My high school diploma demonstrated the Peter Principle to perfection. Self absorbed I graduated neither learned, ambitious, reliable nor skilled but I did lack discipline (humor). The thought of working a mundane job for minimum wage was unthinkable. There was a girl who would hold my hand but otherwise, if I did’t have anything then I didn’t want anything. I was the prodigal son, reluctant to leave the nest. The folly of my growing up left me neither ashamed nor proud, it just was.
I start this way, not as a precursor to the rest of the story but as a reminder that all of us live out our own story and it begins somewhere, it has to. I am convinced this life is driven by struggle more than reward. One’s place in time is not negotiable; wherever you thought you were going, when it is that you find yourself, wherever that may be, there you are. Like beads on a string, my years add up to eighty two, something I think about a lot. When your body can’t keep up like you think it should it’s not a choice.
So as much as it feels like (hung out to dry) my plate is full. I earned my pay in another profession but I identify as a writer and storyteller. All the reading, writing, shuffling ideas, I have a lot to work with. I employ words and phrases like my mother did her yarn and knitting needles. So no surprise when I take language to task for what it should convey and how that makes us feel. Storytelling might be dismissed as clowns reciting silly rhymes to preschoolers. If one thinks Story need be childlike and banal then it would seem so. But without Story there would be no history, no tradition, no humor, little more than yes & no. There would be no way to answer the simple question; Why? Human beings are storytellers, all of us, since the day we first put three words together.
The Titanic metaphor was good but I am still afloat. I finally learned to read, how to work and I’ve never been in so deep I couldn’t make my way. In a nutshell, that is my story. Like a fiber in a thread, woven into a fabric, sewn into a tapestry, my little rhyme is a very small part of a larger work. Still, that little rhyme is all I can muster. It began somewhere, somehow, under circumstances not of my choosing. You get what you get and go from there. If we are lucky we grow with experience. Good luck would seem too much to hope for but sometimes we flourish in spite of ourselves. I would agree with Lefty Gomez, New York Yankees’ Hall of Fame pitcher who said, “I’d rather be lucky than good.”